Читать книгу Because of These Things - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 4

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The coach, that had been slowly proceeding through the starless Italian night by the light of the two lanterns either side of the box seat came to a stop, with a violent jolt, and lurched heavily to one side on the cumbrous leather straps. Guard, postilion, and coachman dismounted, and their short, vigorous Italian curses disturbed the heavy, warm stillness.

With exclamations, complaints, and much reluctance, the passengers opened the now slanting door and descended into the circle of lantern light that revealed the broken wheel.

Two of these passengers were Italians, and, after the first annoyance, took the discomfiture good-humouredly; the other two were Englishmen, and bore themselves with all the haughtiness customary to their race when travelling in a foreign country.

"Harry," came the severe and proud voice of one of these gentlemen, "we had been better situated if you had taken my advice and hired a coach for ourselves. See what comes of travelling in a public stage!"

The other responded more quietly; he had, in fact, been roused from sleep, and still yawned and blinked too indolently for bad temper.

"We can walk into Bologna," he replied; "we must be near the gates." He stretched himself and flung back his fawn-coloured mantle.

"And leave our baggage in charge of these?" asked the first speaker, pointing a shapely hand at the five Italians gathered round the broken wheel.

"Come, Frank, thou art too suspicious," answered his companion, with familiarity and good-nature. "Even though these be Papists and cut-throats (and I make no doubt they are), they must deliver the portmantles in Bologna." So saying, he strode up to the guard and demanded, in a tone of command:

"How far is it to Bologna?" He spoke a tolerable Italian, though his accent was without grace; he translated the man's courteous answer as: "Two miles—and the alternative to sleep here all night!"

With that he pulled out a gold repeating watch and glanced at the dial.

"Ten o'clock, Frank—will you walk to Bologna?" he cried.

"We have no choice," returned the other; "but speak to him, I pray you, about the baggage—I would I had enough of the tongue to do so myself."

"Fellow," said his friend, pointing to the darkness that concealed the top of the coach, "have an eye to yonder portmantles. I am Mr. Middleton and my friend is Mr. Moutray—you will find us at the palazzo of the Countess Odaleschi, in Bologna."

At this name the two Italian gentlemen looked up from the wheel and regarded the foreigners with a more interested scrutiny than they had yet shown. Mr. Moutray noticed this, and flushed with annoyance, pulling his hat over his eyes and stepping further out of the rays of the lantern as resenting even a glance of casual curiosity.

Mr. Middleton fee'd the guard, who was vehement and expressive in his assurances and apologies, raised his hat to his fellow-travellers (who showed no disposition to leave the scene of the disaster, and who appeared, indeed, quite reconciled to a night on the road), and taking Mr. Moutray by the arm, set off along the highway to Bologna.

As soon as they stepped out of the radius of the long lantern beams, complete and impossible darkness engulfed them. With a laugh Mr. Middleton went back and returned with one of the coach lamps—a cumbersome thing that cast, however, a clear radiance over the dusty, rough road.

"By God," said Mr. Middleton, "I'll pay you a compliment, Frank—there are no roads in Scotland worse than this."

Francis Moutray did not respond; his companion guessed that he was considering a grievance, and became silent too. He had learnt that silence was the only weapon with which to meet the young Scotchman's sombre moods of deep depression and reserve.

As they stumbled over the rough stones and into the hollows of white dust, it was Francis Moutray himself who spoke first.

"Saw you how yon fellows stared when you gave the name of the Contessa Odaleschi?" he demanded impatiently. "Surely I will go to an inn and not to the residence of this woman."

"What have you against her?" asked the Englishman lightly. "I tell you that when I met her in Paris she had a charming salon and was much thought of—her first husband was a Contestabile Colonna—"

"Her father was the Duke of Northumberland—and her mother—who?" interrupted Francis Moutray.

The Englishman gave him a swift look across the yellow light of the lantern he held.

"Ah, you know that," he commented.

"I heard it yesterday, and there was light talk about her—a coquette of fifty!" replied Mr. Moutray drily.

"You pragmatical fellow!" exclaimed Mr. Middleton. "I produce you an invitation from the most famous and charming lady in the Italian States, and this is my reward."

"I am," said Mr. Moutray firmly yet wearily, "desirous to be rid of this country which I find an offence and an abomination. I hear the Pope is as great in Bologna as in Rome," he added abruptly.

"'Tis his second city," admitted Mr. Middleton, and he smiled at the scorn and bitterness with which the young man—Calvinist and Northerner in every drop of his blood—spoke. "But when you come to Italy, Frank, you must tolerate the Pope."

"I came for my instruction and for the pleasure of your companionship," returned Mr. Moutray rather coldly; "but I am eager to be in my own country, and I shall never again leave Scotland, no, nor Glenillich either."

"So you say—but you misjudge yourself," smiled the Englishman. "'Twas not wholly the pious desire for instruction, Frank, that brought you on this tour. Your blood is warmer than you admit, and your spirit is too ardent to be satisfied with Glenillich and the kirk."

"My father was so satisfied," retorted the young man half fiercely, "and methinks it would have been well had I followed in his footsteps and remained to rule at Glenillich, nor been drawn by idle curiosity to traverse the lands of pagans and idolaters."

"But you were of too lusty a habit to endure the life your father led," remarked Mr. Middleton keenly. "Believe me, you will never be a saint, Francis, for all your Puritan ancestors, your dominie and pastor in Geneva bands, and the works of theology you have consumed."

The truth of this stung Francis Moutray like a prick on the bare flesh, and he flushed hotly.

"The Devil is busy about all of us," he said, and he spoke with a feeling and a sincerity that redeemed his words from the impression of hypocrisy or foolishness. Mr. Middleton held the lantern higher.

"And you perceive him rather unusually busy here?" he answered. "Does he not tempt you, Frank, austere as you arc, with all the entrancing wares he has to offer?"

"I have seen nothing yet for which I would make traffic with Satan," answered the young man with some real loftiness.

Mr. Middleton lightly laughed.

"You have not seen everything," he remarked. "You are very young."

"Well," returned Mr. Moutray wearily, "I would I were in Scotland and away from these heathen countries."

"This is the end of our pilgrimage," said Harry Middleton. "Give me but a few days in the gay Bologna and I am ready to accompany you home."

Francis Moutray did not speak again until they reached the gates of Bologna, where they had to pull out their passports and answer the inquiries of the Swiss Papal Guards, and then, when all preliminaries were over and the gates were opened for them to pass through, he murmured something under his breath that Mr. Middleton could not catch the sense of, but the tone of which caused him to look at his companion sharply.

The young man was standing in the full rays of the yellow lamp that lit the interior of the old worn gate arch, and his eyes were fixed on the dark vista of the long, dimly illumined arcaded street of Bologna.

He had removed his hat some time since by reason of the oppressive heat, and his face showed clearly pale between his dark hair and his dark clothes; his haughty and pensive features wore a look of black melancholy and bitter apprehension that startled his companion.

"Why—Frank—?"

Francis Moutray half-turned.

"I have a premonition that this city will be fatal to me," he said simply.

Mr. Middleton shrugged his shoulders and laughed; he was well-used to these Gaelic superstitions, glooms, and forebodings.

"Thou art not thyself,"' he answered kindly, and, thrusting his passport into his pocket, he turned and asked the gate-keeper the whereabouts of the inn at which they had arranged to stay the night.

Mr. Moutray sighed, half angrily, clapped his hat on his brow, and strode forward into Bologna.

"Nay, return to Milan," said Mr. Middleton mildly, catching up with him.

Francis Moutray suddenly smiled, with a flash of some humour.

"Now—on foot?" he asked. "I will stay the night here, at least."

The streets were empty, the city silent, here and there fluttering lamps lit the arcades, here and there a coach rattled over the stones and echoed into the dark distance; at intervals a light showed in one of the arched windows of the tall palaces. The strangeness and the oppression were extraordinary to Francis Moutray; something in the city of which he could see so little affected him powerfully with a sense of attraction, a sense of repulsion, and a sense of doom. His hereditary melancholy deepened unbearably; he felt old and useless, a weight as of the world on his heart, and the dark, arched street became to him as awesome as a highway to hell.

The inn was in darkness too; all hope of the coach had been abandoned for that night, and the landlord and drawers had to be roused from their beds.

Francis Moutray declined supper, left Mr. Middleton at a hearty meal, and was ushered upstairs into the room prepared for him—a large chamber with a stone floor and a thick, white mosquito-net hanging round a black four-poster bed. The flickering flame of the thick yellow candle shot a wavering light over the walls and the painted ceiling, revealed too, near the bed, a great picture of the Madonna holding her Child.

The landlord withdrew, leaving the light on the old black bureau, and Francis Moutray stood looking at the one picture in the room.

He left as if he was face to face with the menace of the city—a thing hitherto not seen, but felt.

He stood for some while, quite still, staring at the flamboyant oil-painting of the Mother and Child, both of whom seemed to regard him with a peculiar and derisive smile that affected him like a narcotic, for presently his senses dazed, and he thought that the figures moved and pointed at him and mocked.

A clock struck midnight; the first of the strokes roused him. He strode up to the picture, pulled it from the wall, opened the door, and put the Papist symbol in the dark passage.

As he returned to his chamber he became suddenly acutely conscious that he was tired to exhaustion. He flung off his hat and cloak and cast himself down in the huge chair beside the bed; the windows were shut and the room close and oppressive, even the shiny marble floor was damp with heat. Francis gasped for air, but he knew that to open the window would be to let in a cloud of poisonous nightflies; even now a faint circle of them hovered round the candle flame and dropped, singed, into the guttered pools of coarse tallow.

Francis hated the room. His apprehension grew, it was with him like a living companion, to whisper, to suggest, to warn.

He rose up again and turned the key in the lock; he looked to the pistols in his belt, and put his sword on the chair, ready to his hand. His fatigue increased until it was as if he had been drugged; all his mental fear and dread could not keep his body alert, his knees and hands shook, and the lids fell heavily over his eyes.

"The Papist picture has bewitched me," he murmured, as he dragged off his coat and, pulling aside the white net curtains, fell on the narrow bed.

The pillows and mattress were hard, the linen neither fresh nor cool, but Francis Moutray sank at once into a sleep or swoon in which the most powerful and vivid dream of his life came to him—came in a flash, like a streak of lightning against a midnight heaven.

He thought that a woman grew up from the darkness, formed rapidly, and came to instant perfection out of a swirl of fire, jewels, and flowers. She was dressed like those Italian ladies he had lately met, in full vanity of brocade and velvet, lace and gems; she was beautiful with the beauty he had dreamed of in profane and forbidden dreams, not with the human beauty he had seen with his waking eyes, and he knew that she was Temptation and Evil and Desire, no longer a dim, haunting shape to sting secretly and be thrust away, but a visualized form, full-grown, challenging, dominant. She had a look of the Madonna he had flung from his room; she was the thing he had dreaded, feared, yet sought to find; he wanted her and he hated her—both passionately.

He made a movement of pain and she slowly approached the bed, holding her soft hands on her full bosom—her movements and her looks were tender and caressing, yet the movement and look of some one advancing on her prey.

Francis shivered, yet longed for her approach. The room was certainly full of a vague horror; reality was mingled with his vision, and he could see the circle of light and the circle of flies about the candle—it worried him that he had left it burning, and he tried to move, but his limbs were as powerless as if they were under a leaden pall, and the woman came nearer. He looked at her, knowing she was but the embodiment of his own fancies and fears and desires, yet seeing her clearly, actually a creature of flesh and blood yet touched with the terror of dreams. She came nearer, and the cambric on her bosom heaved with the beating of her heart. She was fair, and her blue eyes sparkled with an unearthly fire. She reached the bed and drew aside the mosquito-net; her lips were full and moist as those of the vampire who lives on men's blood—but gently curved too and sweetly smiling.

With a sob of horror and despair Francis sac up, overcoming, with an effort of agony, the inertia that bound him; his staring eyes gazed into the soft orbs of the phantom who bent down till her loose locks touched his feverish forehead.

She was pervading him, overcoming him, absorbing him ...

"You want my soul!" he shrieked, and he called on God and seized the fair mischief by the throat ...She made no resistance, she was slack in his grip; his strength came to him in a rush of triumph, he flung her down, dragging the mosquito-net from the pole. She faded, drooped, and all the flash went from her jewels, all the colours from her robe.

Francis laughed.

"Come to me now! I have often wanted you, and now you are dead I may hold you in my arms!"

He tried to lift her on to the bed, but he observed that she was covered with blood from head to foot, and with a moan he let her slip on to the marble floor.

"I have murdered her!" he said. He fell back, and an awful sense of loneliness possessed him—loneliness and horror and the hot sickness of his fantasy. He struggled up again with desperate strength, and stretched out his arms over the torn curtains where he thought the lady lay; his hand knocked against the chair, and a loud clatter roused him from the thick horror of his dream. He sat up, clasping his hands to his damp forehead; he perceived that the room was empty and the marble floor unstained, and that the noisy rattle which had awakened him had been caused by his sword and pistol being cast to the ground by his own violent movement.

He sprang up and, with shaking hands, replaced the weapons, then stumbled to the window and pulled it open. The fresher air of the outer night revived him and dispelled his confused fancies. Regardless of the poison supposed to linger in the night air, he fastened the casement back on the rude clasp and stood staring into the darkness that concealed Bologna.

He now scorned himself for his vision; he felt his forehead and pulse, and knew himself feverish. This was not the first time he had found himself weakened and delirious with fever since he had crossed the Italian frontiers. He cursed the country and cursed the heat; he thought of the picture of the Virgin in the corridor and shuddered, half-accusing her of having put a spell on him; but did not the whole country stand for witchcraft and damnation?

The thick flame of the candle sank out under the weight of the thronging mosquitoes, the rank smell of tallow filled the room. Francis Moutray fumbled his way back to the bed and, falling on his knees beside it, dropped his head against the disarranged coverlet, and sank into a delirious sleep, while without his window the coloured Italian dawn began to reveal Bologna.