Part 35 (1/2)

The vice-consul laughed unresentfully. ”Well, shall I send you a lawyer?”

”No!” Mrs. Lander retorted; and after a moment's reflection she added, ”I'm goin' to stay my month, and so you may tell him, and then I'll see whetha he can make me pay for that breakage and the candles and suvvice.

I'm all wore out, as it is, and I ain't fit to travel, now, and I don't know when I shall be. Clementina, you can go and tell Maddalena to stop packin'. Or, no! I'll do it.”

She left the room without further notice of the consul, who said ruefully to Clementina, ”Well, I've missed my chance, Miss Claxon, but I guess she's done the wisest thing for herself.”

”Oh, yes, she's not fit to go. She must stay, now, till it's coola. Will you tell the landlo'd, or shall--”

”I'll tell him,” said the vice-consul, and he had in the landlord. He received her message with the pleasure of a host whose cherished guests have consented to remain a while longer, and in the rush of his good feeling he offered, if the charge for breakage seemed unjust to the vice-consul, to abate it; and since the signora had not understood that she was to pay extra for the other things, he would allow the vice-consul to adjust the differences between them; it was a trifle, and he wished above all things to content the signora, for whom he professed a cordial esteem both on his own part and the part of all his family.

”Then that lets me out for the present,” said the vice-consul, when Clementina repeated Mrs. Lander's acquiescence in the landlord's proposals, and he took his straw hat, and called a gondola from the nearest 'traghetto', and bargained at an expense consistent with his salary, to have himself rowed back to his own garden-gate.

The rest of the day was an era of better feeling between Mrs. Lander and her host than they had ever known, and at dinner he brought in with his own hand a dish which he said he had caused to be specially made for her. It was so tempting in odor and complexion that Mrs. Lander declared she must taste it, though as she justly said, she had eaten too much already; when it had once tasted it she ate it all, against Clementina's protestations; she announced at the end that every bite had done her good, and that she never felt better in her life. She pa.s.sed a happy evening, with renewed faith in the air of the lagoon; her sole regret now was that Mr. Lander had not lived to try it with her, for if he had she was sure he would have been alive at that moment.

She allowed herself to be got to bed rather earlier than usual; before Clementina dropped asleep she heard her breathing with long, easy, quiet respirations, and she lost the fear of the landlord's dish which had haunted her through the evening. She was awakened in the morning by a touch on her shoulder. Maddalena hung over her with a frightened face, and implored her to come and look at the signora, who seemed not at all well. Clementina ran into her room, and found her dead. She must have died some hours before without a struggle, for the face was that of sleep, and it had a dignity and beauty which it had not worn in her life of self-indulgent wilfulness for so many years that the girl had never seen it look so before.

x.x.xIV.

The vice-consul was not sure how far his powers went in the situation with which Mrs. Lander had finally embarra.s.sed him. But he met the new difficulties with patience, and he agreed with Clementina that they ought to see if Mrs. Lander had left any written expression of her wishes concerning the event. She had never spoken of such a chance, but had always looked forward to getting well and going home, so far as the girl knew, and the most careful search now brought to light nothing that bore upon it. In the absence of instructions to the contrary, they did what they must, and the body, emptied of its life of senseless worry and greedy care, was laid to rest in the island cemetery of Venice.

When all was over, the vice-consul ventured an observation which he had hitherto delicately withheld. The question of Mrs. Lander's kindred had already been discussed between him and Clementina, and he now felt that another question had duly presented itself. ”You didn't notice,” he suggested, ”anything like a will when we went over the papers?” He had looked carefully for it, expecting that there might have been some expression of Mrs. Lander's wishes in it. ”Because,” he added, ”I happen to know that Mr. Milray drew one up for her; I witnessed it.”

”No,” said Clementina, ”I didn't see anything of it. She told me she had made a will; but she didn't quite like it, and sometimes she thought she would change it. She spoke of getting you to do it; I didn't know but she had.”

The vice-consul shook his head. ”No. And these relations of her husband's up in Michigan; you don't know where they live, exactly?”

”No. She neva told me; she wouldn't; she didn't like to talk about them; I don't even know their names.”

The vice-consul thoughtfully scratched a corner of his chin through his beard. ”If there isn't any will, they're the heirs. I used to be a sort of wild-cat lawyer, and I know that much law.”

”Yes,” said Clementina. ”She left them five thousand dollas apiece. She said she wished she had made it ten.”

”I guess she's made it a good deal more, if she's made it anything. Miss Claxon, don't you understand that if no will turns up, they come in for all her money.

”Well, that's what I thought they ought to do,” said Clementina.

”And do you understand that if that's so, you don't come in for anything? You must excuse me for mentioning it; but she has told everybody that you were to have it, and if there is no will--”

He stopped and bent an eye of lack-l.u.s.tre compa.s.sion on the girl, who replied, ”Oh, yes. I know that; it's what I always told her to do. I didn't want it.”

”You didn't want it?”

”No.”

”Well!” The vice-consul stared at her, but he forbore the comment that her indifference inspired. He said after a pause, ”Then what we've got to do is to advertise for the Michigan relations, and let 'em take any action they want to.”

”That's the only thing we could do, I presume.”

This gave the vice-consul another pause. At the end of it he got to his feet. ”Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Claxon?”

She went to her portfolio and produced Mrs. Lander's letter of credit.