Part 21 (1/2)
Jenny ascended the mountain as lightly as a b.u.t.terfly. She was lovelier than ever in the morning light, yet a misty doubt, a watchful sadness, seemed to hover upon her forehead. Her wonderful eyes looked ahead up the precipitous tract that she and the Italian woman climbed together. She moderated her pace to the slower gait of the elder and presently they both stopped before a little grey chapel perched beside the hill path.
Mr. Albert Redmayne's silkworms, in the great airy shed behind his villa, had nearly all spun their coc.o.o.ns now, for it was June again and the annual crop of mulberry leaves in the valleys beneath were well-nigh exhausted.
Therefore a.s.sunta Marzelli, the old bibliophile's housekeeper, made holiday with his niece, now upon a visit to him, and together the women climbed, where food might be procured for the last tardy caterpillars to change their state.
They had started in the grey dawn, pa.s.sed up a dry watercourse, and proceeded where the vine was queen and there fell a scented filigree of dead blossom from flowering olives. They had seen a million cl.u.s.ters of tiny grapes already rounding and had pa.s.sed through wedges and squares of cultivated earth, where sprang alternate patches of corn yellowing to harvest and the lush green of growing maize. Figs and almonds and rows of red and white mulberries, with naked branches stripped of foliage, broke the lines of the crops.
Here hedges sparkled in a harvest of scarlet cherries; and here sheep and goats nibbled over little, bright tracts of sweet gra.s.s.
Higher yet shone out groves of chestnut trees, all s.h.i.+ning with the light of their ta.s.sels, very bright by contrast with the gloom of the mountain pines.
And then, where two tall cypresses stood upon either side, Jenny and a.s.sunta found the shrine and stayed a while. Jenny set down the basket which she carried with their midday meal, and her companion dropped the great bin destined to hold mulberry leaves.
The lake below was now reduced to a cup of liquid jade over which shot streamers of light into the mountain shadows at its brink; but there were vessels floating on the waters that held the watchers'
eyes.
They looked like twin, toy torpedo boats--mere streaks of red and black upon the water, with Italy's flag at the taffrail. But the little s.h.i.+ps were no toys and a.s.sunta hated them, for the strange craft told of the ceaseless battle waged by authority against the mountain smugglers and reminded the widow of her own lawless husband's death ten years before. Caesar Marzelli had taken his cup to the well once too often and had lost his life in a pitched battle with the officers of the customs.
Long shafts of glory shot between the mountains and drenched the lake; the shoulders of the lesser hills flamed; the waters beneath them flashed; and far away, among the table-lands of the morning mist, against a sapphire sky, there gleamed the last patches of snow.
A cross of rusty iron surmounted the little sanctuary by which they sat, and the roof was of old tiles scorched a mellow tint of brown.
To Maris Stella was the shrine dedicated; and within, under the altar, white bones gleamed--skulls and thighs and ribs of men and women who had perished of the plague in far-off time.
”_Morti della peste_,” read Jenny, on the front of the altar, and a.s.sunta, in gloomy mood before the recollection of the past, spoke to her young mistress and shook her head.
”I envy them sometimes, signora. Their troubles are ended. Those heads, that have ached and wept so often, will never ache and weep again.”
She spoke in Italian and Jenny but partially understood. Yet she joined a.s.sunta on her knees and together they made their morning prayer to Mary, Star of the Sea, and asked for what their souls most desired.
Presently they rose, a.s.sunta the calmer for her pet.i.tions, and together they proceeded upward. The elder tried to explain what a base and abominable thing it was that her husband, an honest free trader between Italy and Switzerland, should have been destroyed by the slaves in the government vessels beneath, and Jenny nodded and strove to understand. She was making progress in Italian, though a.s.sunta's swift tongue and local patois were as yet beyond her comprehension. But she knew that her dead smuggler husband was the subject on a.s.sunta's lips and nodded her sympathy.
”Sons of dogs!” cried the widow; then a steep section of their road reduced her to silence.
The great event of that day, which brought Jenny Doria so violently back into the tragedy of the past, had yet to happen, and many hours elapsed before she was confronted with it. The women climbed presently to a little field of meadow gra.s.s that sparkled with tiny flowers and spread its alpine sward among thickets of mulberry. Here their work awaited them; but first they ate the eggs and wheaten bread, walnuts and dried figs that they had brought and shared a little flask of red wine. They finished with a handful of cherries and then a.s.sunta began to pluck leaves for her great basket while Jenny loitered a while and smoked a cigarette. It was a new habit acquired since her marriage.
Presently she set to work and a.s.sisted her companion until they had gathered a full load of leaves. Then the younger plucked one or two great golden orange lilies that grew in this little glen, and soon the women started upon their homeward way. They had descended about a mile and at a shoulder of Griante sat down to rest in welcome shadow. Beneath, to the northward, lay their home beside the water and, gazing down upon the scattered and cl.u.s.tered habitations of Menaggio, Jenny declared that she saw the red roof of Villa Pianezzo and the brown of the lofty shed behind, where dwelt her uncle's silkworms.
Opposite, on its promontory, stood the little towns.h.i.+p of Bellagio and behind it flashed the gla.s.sy face of Lecco in the cloudless suns.h.i.+ne. And then, suddenly, as if it had been some apparition limned upon the air, there stood in the path the figure of a tall man. His red head was bare and from the face beneath shone a pair of wild and haggard eyes. They saw the stranger's great tawny mustache, his tweed garments and knickerbockers, his red waistcoat, and the cap he carried in his hand.
It was Robert Redmayne. a.s.sunta, who gazed upon him without understanding, suddenly felt Jenny's hand tighten hard upon her arm.
Jenny uttered one loud cry of terror and then relaxed and fell unconscious upon the ground. The widow leaped to her aid, cried comfortable words and prayed the young wife to fear nothing; but it was some time before Jenny came to her senses and when she did so her nerve appeared to have deserted her.
”Did you see him?” she gasped, clinging to a.s.sunta and gazing fearfully where her uncle had stood.
”Yes, yes--a big, red man; but he meant us no harm. When you cried out, he was more frightened than we. He leaped down, like a red fox, into the wood and disappeared. He was not an Italian. A German or Englishman, I think. Perhaps a smuggler planning to fetch tea and cigars and coffee and salt from Switzerland. If he leaves enough for the doganieri, they will wink at him. If he does not, they will shoot him--sons of dogs!”
”Remember what you saw!” said Jenny tremulously: ”Remember exactly what he looked like, that you may be able to tell Uncle Albert just how it was, a.s.sunta. He is Uncle Albert's brother--Robert Redmayne!”
a.s.sunta Marzelli knew something of the mystery and understood that her master's brother was being hunted for great crimes.