Читать книгу Matorni's Vineyard - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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The residents of Monte Carlo, whose windows commanded a view of the port, received a surprise when they awoke on the following morning. A small Italian cruiser had entered the harbour in the night, and lay in the centre of the basin. Her visit appeared to have been unexpected by the maritime authorities, for the usual civilities were unexchanged. At nine o’clock a closed motor car was driven rapidly along the quay to where a small pinnace manned by Italian sailors had been waiting for over an hour. The Princess di Panini, recognised by a few of the loiterers, descended from the car and hastily embarked. Some minutes later she was received by the Commander in full uniform, assisted up a carpeted gangway, and escorted to a cabin on the lower deck, at the door of which two sentries with naked bayonets were standing. There was the quick interchange of a pass word, and the door was opened and closed once more to the outside world. A tall man in civilian clothes came hastily from an inner room, his arms outstretched.

“Lucilla!”

“Antonio!”

They stood for a minute locked in each other’s arms. Then she drew away. There were tears in her eyes, but they were the shining tears of joy.

“Please explain,” she begged. “How was this possible? I had no word.”

“I ached for you,” he answered, “and the man in me triumphed. Lucilla, you grow more beautiful every day.”

She laughed happily.

“And you, my dear, so tired and yet so wonderful,” she murmured, smoothing his hair.

He led her to a couch and stood over her—a tall, thin, but finely shaped man, so lean in the face that his cheeks were almost hollow. All his features were carved with deep lines. In his eyes was the brightness of genius. The black hair brushed back from his high forehead was faintly streaked with grey, but his whole frame seemed to exude vigour and vitality.

“Nothing that ever happened in the world is so amazing as this!” she cried, seizing his hands.

“It is simple enough,” he assured her. “I was two days at Genoa, and Genoa, after all, is not so far away. There was the memorial and the address I promised to deliver two months ago. Our fastest cruiser was in the harbour. The temptation was irresistible. I laid my finger upon the mouth of the press, and we dashed for here. By midday we will be headed for Civita Vecchia.”

“My wonderful Antonio!” she whispered.

He leaned towards her opened arms, the time passed by, they were cut off from the world. Their isolation, guarded by those sentries with the naked bayonets, was as profound as the gods could grant.—

Outside, the Principality awoke to the joy of a 65 wonderful spring morning. The sun mounted higher in the heavens. A little crowd upon the quay watched the departure of a popular yacht, lines of people leaning over the railings at the top gazed at the long, sinister-looking war machine, the latest of her type, lying below, bristling with guns and flying the Italian flag. Not one of them dreamed that behind her steel walls she guarded one of the love romances of the world.

“An hour of your visit gone,” he said at last. “How selfish I am.—You will take some coffee.”

He touched a bell. Coffee, fruit and a flask of wine were brought almost at once. And again their solitude was sealed.

“I come,” he confided with a smile, “like Nero to the caves of Sybil. Tell me my fortune, Lucilla. What do people say of my country’s new attitude towards these continual frontier incidents? Has any one the vision to see whither they are leading?”

She passed her arm through his.

“Antonio,” she confessed, “sometimes I wish that this last great dream of yours had been slower of birth. Sometimes I am afraid.”

He smiled at her tenderly.

“What fear need you have, sweetheart?” he asked. “You have seen how my army has grown during the last ten years. You, more than any one, realise its new spirit, which has come with the triumph of our creed. France is a weary country, weary of bloodshed, and—mark you, this is the most poignant 66 thing of all—France is to-day a country without ideals. Her people have no high standards of life. She moves forward towards the material things. She lacks inspiration. She is tired, as my people too were tired, but we have been born again in a new faith and a new religion. We are invincible, Lucilla, unconquerable! You do not doubt me?”

“I doubt nothing that you say, Antonio,” she assured him, clinging more closely to his arm; “but you are one man.”

“Rienzi was one man,” he retorted; “Cæsar was one man; Napoleon was one man. It is by one man alone that a country can be saved and governed. Do I need to ask you to recall what I have made of Italy?”

“I am only a woman, remember,” she went on. “These attacks upon your life—they frighten me. The last one—how you ever escaped, God knows.”

“It is God who does know,” he answered reverently. “Don’t you think that if it were meant that I should be killed by the hands of an assassin, I should have been dead months and years ago? I have grown to the great faith. I believe in my destiny. I now look at the dagger of the would-be murderer or down the barrel of the pistol with a calm which I used to affect. To-day it is a real tranquillity. Fear is an unknown quantity in my life. Nothing will happen to me until Italy has regained her former greatness. Each day my plans mature more surely. My council of generals is unanimous. There is no possible 67 movement of French troops which could counter our attacks. Look up at La Turbie from your villa windows this afternoon. Before winter comes you will see the Italian flag flying from it. Before the New Year we shall hold Nice once more, and hold it as long as history lasts. Have no fear, Lucilla. They are beginning to call me an Imperialist, but this is no war of conquest which I have planned; it is a war to recover what the craven leaders of my country yielded to France in the old days. I tell you that the whole seaboard from Mentone to Cagnes-sur-Mer is Italian—Italian in speech, character, and tradition. The French are interlopers. The country which belongs to us shall once more be ours. Other people can prate of philanthropy, of equal division amongst the nations. Hypocrisy, all of it! The greater Italy will hold its own lands. My mission is to make Italy great, and to force any nation which stands in our way into the dust if needs be.”

He suddenly rose to his feet and walked the cabin to and fro. His hands were clenched; odd fragments of words half uttered broke from his lips. Lucilla watched him without interrupting. She knew these moods too well. His feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground. Sometimes his head was thrown back; sometimes it was downcast, his forehead wrinkled. He passed through the phases of many emotions. In the end he sank back once more by her side, exhausted. He took her hands and pressed his lips to hers.

“Lucilla,” he murmured, “I have had my glimpse of paradise. Now once more to earth! Tell me this. There is still no news of the papers Uguello was supposed to have been carrying?”

“None,” she answered. “I see Torrita night and morning. There is still no news.”

He frowned, and there was a momentary flash of anger in his deep-set eyes.

“It is not often,” he muttered, “that my messengers of death fail.”

“I wish,” she sighed, “that you had not to use them so often.”

“I am not ashamed of them, Lucilla. When I order death, it is for the good of Italy. Uguello was the ambassador of the Red Shirts, the scum of the country, the Communists, the men whom I hate. One by one they shall go as he went. Red Shirts indeed! They had better dye them quickly, or they will be red with blood. Listen, Lucilla.”

“My dear one!”

“Tell Torrita to stay where he is until he can bring me the papers. If they reach Italy, I shall need a new Chief of Police.—You have met Bremner—Lord Bremner, the English Cabinet Minister? They tell me that he is in Monte Carlo.”

“Not yet,” she acknowledged. “I go out so little.”

Matorni glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece.

“You are one of those who never fail me. You will not tell me that it is an impossibility. I wish 69 a visit from Bremner. I wish him to come here, if possible without actually knowing whom he is to meet, but I wish him here within an hour.”

She rose to her feet.

“Monte Carlo is a small place. I shall find him.”

He held out his arms. Once more they stood for a few moments motionless.

“My dear beloved!” he whispered. “Never so long again. I have plans—wonderful plans!”

Her face shone with joy. She suddenly bent and kissed his fingers.

“Till you come again, dear lover!” she whispered.

He touched the bell. The door opened, the sentries presented arms. The touch of modernity, represented by her fashionable clothing, seemed to vanish as she swept along the deck. There was an atmosphere of something regal about her as she descended the carpeted steps and took her place in the waiting boat. She might indeed have been a queen leaving her consort.