Читать книгу Shadows of Flames - Amélie Rives - Страница 8

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When Sophy entered the drawing-room, Amaldi was standing with his hands behind him, looking down at a drawing of herself that stood on a table near the fireplace. The drawing had been made when she was eighteen by a young Polish artist. It was done in yellow-and-brown chalks and had a curious glow—a look of golden light about it. Chesney disliked it. He pronounced it too "mystical." The truth was that it revealed a side of Sophy's nature which was forever inaccessible to him.

As she gave Amaldi her hand, she said: "You were looking at that old drawing. It's a strange thing, isn't it?"

"Yes. Like 'the shadow of a flame,'" he answered. Then as Sophy started and looked at him inquiringly, he added, smiling: "Varesca told me of your poems. I read them yesterday. I won't bore you by telling you how beautiful I thought them. And the title— I wondered so much how you came to think of that lovely title. That, in itself, is a poem."

Sophy blushed like a girl. She was very sensitive about that book of verse. Since she had known more of life, she had often wondered at her own naïveté which had allowed her to pour out from her heart, as from a cup, those inmost feelings, for any chance buyer to possess in common with her. The voice in that little volume was the voice of one crying in the wilderness of youth; now she was a woman, and she blushed for the passionate ignorance of the girl she had been.

Amaldi said quickly:

"Have I been indiscreet? Perhaps you don't like to talk of your writing. Please forgive me if I've been indiscreet."

"No, no; indeed you haven't been," she answered. "I'm very glad you like my verses. Only—well— I wrote them so long ago. One changes— I was very young...."

"And now," said Amaldi, smiling, "you feel very old, I suppose?"

She smiled in answer.

"I certainly feel older," she said lightly.

Amaldi was thinking how much like a young girl she looked, sitting there in her plain white gown, with her hands clasped about one knee. Having read those impassioned early poems, he marvelled at a spirit that could be at once so fiery and so virginal. He felt sure that there could be no other like her in the world—so deeply was he in love with her already. But this love was quite different from anything that he had ever felt before. It had in it both mysticism and fatality. It was a desire of the soul as well as of the body. He had had "loves" before—this was Love.

And in Sophy's mind was the consciousness of what Olive Arundel had told her, only the day before, about the tragedy of Amaldi's life. It seemed that when he was only twenty-three he had made a mariage de convenance to please his father. He had married his cousin, Clelia Castelli. Two years afterwards she had been unfaithful to him. Amaldi had fought with her lover. Then husband and wife had separated. There is no divorce in Italy.

Sophy was thinking now: "When he was twenty-five—two years younger than I am—he was fighting his wife's lover with a bare sword. He was living out those real, dreadful things when he was a mere boy."

And she could not help glancing curiously at his hand, to which a seal ring of sapphire engraved with his arms gave such a foreign look.... Only thirty-one, and cut off forever by the laws of his country and its religion from family, from children.... Yes—that was tragic. That was real tragedy.

Amaldi said suddenly in his grave voice:

"May I know how you came to call your book The Shadow of a Flame?"

"Yes; it's very simple," she answered. "I was rather unhappy. I had stayed awake all night—reading by candle-light. My window looked to the east. When the sun rose, my candle was still burning. And as I started to blow it out, I noticed that in the sunlight, its flame cast a shadow on the page of my book. And it came to me that we were all like that—like little flames casting shadows in some greater light. And that our passions were also like little flames that cast shadows—of sorrow ... regret ... despair ... weariness...."

"Yes," said Amaldi, "yes—it is like that...."

Something in the timbre of her voice as she said the words, "sorrow ... regret ... despair ... weariness," moved him deeply. He did not dare to say more. He was not at any time a man of fluent speech, now his earnest desire not to be "indiscreet" in the least degree made him feel oddly dumb.

Sophy herself changed the note of their conversation to a lighter key.

"Tell me," she said suddenly, "is the home that you care for most in the town or in the country? I can't help thinking that your real home is in some beautiful country part of Italy."

"Yes," he said, his face lighting. "On Lago Maggiore."

"Ah! I was sure of it! I'd thought of Como. Is your lake as beautiful as Como?"

"I think it more beautiful. I believe you would think so, too. How I should like to show it to you—the Lake and our old Tenuta. We have a dear old place. I live there most of the time with my mother. We are great friends, my mother and I."

"Ah! that is beautiful!" she said warmly. "That is what I want my son to feel for me when he grows up."

Amaldi winced. He had not thought of her as having a child. It seemed to set her still farther from him. He had for an instant an almost overpowering sense of the bleakness of his lot. Like all Italians, he adored children. He would never have a son. And now he learned suddenly that she had a son—the child of another man.

"Ah," he said mechanically. "You have a son? Is he like you?"

"No; like himself. But some people think that his eyes are like mine. You shall judge for yourself. Only, please don't be vexed if he doesn't go to you at once. He's a funny mouse. He's rather stiff with strangers."

The butler here brought in tea, and as Sophy finished pouring it, she turned suddenly, exclaiming:

"I think that's my boy coming in now!"

She sprang up and, crossing the room with her light, joyous step, opened the door before Amaldi could overtake her. When she turned again, her little son was in her arms.

"You needn't wait, Miller," she said, over her shoulder, to the nurse. "I'll send him up to you later."

The boy leaned with one arm about his mother's neck, his slim, polished legs, emerging from white socks, hanging down against the soft curve of her breast. His little face, grave and concentrated, regarded the stranger with impartial attention.

Sophy seated herself, slipped off his quaint hat, and ran her hand over the short dark red curls. It seemed to Amaldi that the white hand quivered with ecstasy over the child's head like a white moth over a flower. The boy was not beautiful, but he had his mother's eyes, though he did not look like his mother.

"This is my little man ... this is Bobby," said Sophy, smiling from the boy to Amaldi, and sliding the child from her knee upon his feet.

"You really mustn't mind if he isn't friendly—he doesn't seem to like many people—and none, just at first."

Amaldi and the boy were looking gravely at each other. Suddenly Amaldi smiled. His face seemed to put off a certain delicate mask when he smiled like that. He held out his hand.

"Will you come and try my stick, Bobby?" he said. "It makes a splendid horse."

The boy pressed back hard against his mother's knee for an instant, his eyes still on Amaldi's. They continued to look at each other steadily for some seconds. Then Bobby twisted around as he leaned against Sophy, looked up inquiringly into her face, smiled suddenly, showing his little crimped teeth, and, drawing himself erect, walked straight up to Amaldi.

"Oh!" said Sophy on a hushed breath, as when a bird alights near one. Never before had Bobby gone to a stranger. A feeling of delight came over her. The child was ratifying her own instinct about Amaldi. She looked on with lips parted and eyes softly shining, while Bobby, leaning now against Amaldi's knee, fingered the dark, smooth stick that made "a splendid horse." But while his small hands wandered over the curved handle, he was gazing not at the stick but into Amaldi's face.

Suddenly he pushed the stick aside.

"Take Bobby," he said.

Amaldi lifted him upon his knee, and the child, putting one hand against the young man's breast, continued gazing up into his eyes. Then he said:

"Stan' up.... Bobby! stan' up."

Amaldi put his hands about the firm little body, and raised it, so that Bobby stood like a tiny Rhodian Apollo, with a foot on either knee of his new friend. For some moments he stayed so, looking down into Amaldi's face with deep consideration. Then, as if having thought everything out to his entire satisfaction, he bent forward, and set the soft, damp ring of his small mouth against the young man's cheek.

"Bobby man!" he announced. And at once burst into the wildest chuckles, hugging Amaldi's head to him with both arms, springing in his grasp like a bewitched india-rubber ball—repeating over and over, "Bobby man!—Bobby man!"

Amaldi clasped him close. His dark face glowed with pleasure. All at once it came back to Sophy afresh that his tragic marriage had been childless. Her heart felt very pitiful towards him.

Here the door opened, and Chesney entered.

Amaldi rose with Bobby still in his arms.

"My husband—Marchese Amaldi," said Sophy.

"How d'ye do?" said Chesney. He was looking at Bobby. Then he turned to Sophy.

"Isn't it rather late for the little chap to be downstairs?" he asked.

"I was going to send him away in a few moments. But he's made such friends with the Marchese. Isn't it odd? Just look at him."

Chesney sank into an armchair, and Amaldi also sat down, keeping the boy in his arms. Bobby had suddenly grown quite still. He remained with his head against Amaldi's breast, his thumb in his mouth, looking fixedly at his father. His blurs of reddish eyebrow were drawn together.

"Little monkey! He's scowling at me——" observed Chesney, with his short laugh. "He's not a filial character—young Robert," he flung out carelessly, as though he might be addressing Amaldi, but he did not look at him; his eyes were fixed on the boy, and he himself was scowling slightly.

Sophy spoke in a low aside, meant only for his ear.

"Now, Cecil; don't excite him, please. He doesn't sleep well when you worry him."

Chesney acted as though he had not heard her. He sat erect, then leaned forward, and with his great hands hanging loose between his knees, said in a firm tone: "Come here, Bobby."

The child did not stir. Then he took his thumb from his mouth.

"No," he said in a clear, distinct little voice. He put back his thumb and began sucking it vigorously, swinging one foot to and fro in a sort of accompaniment.

Sophy knew well this sign in Bobby. It meant flat rebellion and rising temper.

"Cecil...." she murmured. "Cecil...."

He took not the slightest notice of her.

"Charmingly you're brought up, ain't you ... you cheeky little brat," said he to his son, in a lazy sort of drawl. Then he barked it at him: "Come here to me when I tell you!"

Again Bobby removed his thumb, and again he said, "No," clearly and firmly.

Chesney got up.

When the child saw this, he relinquished his small arms of mutiny, and flattening himself against Amaldi's breast, clung to him, crying: "No! No! Teep Bobby—teep Bobby."

Amaldi was very pale. Sophy stepped in front of Chesney. She tried to take Bobby in her arms, but nervous dread made him refuse, and he clung like a burr to Amaldi, hiding his face in his neck, clutching with his little hands.

"Cecil——" said Sophy again, for he had actually laid his hand on her arm as though to put her from his way.

Amaldi felt in an impossible nightmare. An icy rage congealed him. And suddenly, over the boy's head, the eyes of the two men met. Strange to say, Amaldi's were absolutely expressionless. Something in their still, blank look checked Chesney. He stood a second undetermined, then gave that self-conscious, embarrassed laugh that Sophy knew so well. It was over, then. That especial laugh always meant yielding on Cecil's part. She turned again to Bobby, her lip quivering in spite of her will.

"Come, darling.... Come to mother...." she whispered.

Suddenly the boy let her take him. He was trembling all over, but scorned to cry.

Amaldi murmured a few formalities and left. With Bobby close in her arms, Sophy went quickly past her husband out of the room. He made no effort to detain her.