19. CHAPTER XIX
Avoiding the crowd under the colonnades, Francis walked slowly up and
down the noble open space of the square, bathed in the light of the rising
moon.
Without being aware of it himself, he was a thorough materialist. The
strange effect produced on him by the room — following on the other strange
effects produced on the other relatives of his dead brother — exercised
no perplexing influence over the mind of this sensible man.
'Perhaps,'
he reflected,
'my temperament is more imaginative than I supposed it to
be — and this is a trick played on me by my own fancy? Or, perhaps, my
friend is right; something is physically amiss with me? I don't feel ill,
certainly. But that is no safe criterion sometimes. I am not going to sleep
in that abominable room to-night — I can well wait till to-morrow to decide
whether I shall speak to a doctor or not. In the mean time, the hotel
doesn't seem likely to supply me with the subject of a piece. A terrible
smell from an invisible ghost is a perfectly new idea. But it has one
drawback. If I realise it on the stage, I shall drive the audience out
of the theatre.'
As his strong common sense arrived at this facetious conclusion, he
became aware of a lady, dressed entirely in black, who was observing him
with marked attention.
'Am I right in supposing you to be Mr. Francis
Westwick?'
the lady asked, at the moment when he looked at her.
'That is my name, madam. May I inquire to whom I have the honour of
speaking?'
'We have only met once,'
she answered a little evasively,
'when your
late brother introduced me to the members of his family. I wonder if you
have quite forgotten my big black eyes and my hideous complexion?'
She
lifted her veil as she spoke, and turned so that the moonlight rested on her
face.
Francis recognised at a glance the woman of all others whom he most
cordially disliked — the widow of his dead brother, the first Lord
Montbarry. He frowned as he looked at her. His experience on the stage,
gathered at innumerable rehearsals with actresses who had sorely tried his
temper, had accustomed him to speak roughly to women who were distasteful
to him.
'I remember you,'
he said.
'I thought you were in
America!'
She took no notice of his ungracious tone and manner; she simply
stopped him when he lifted his hat, and turned to leave her.
'Let me walk with you for a few minutes,'
she quietly replied.
'I have something to say to you.'
He showed her his cigar.
'I am smoking,'
he said.
'I don't mind smoking.'
After that, there was nothing to be done (short of downright brutality)
but to yield. He did it with the worst possible grace.
'Well?'
he
resumed.
'What do you want of me?'
'You shall hear directly, Mr. Westwick. Let me first tell you what my
position is. I am alone in the world. To the loss of my husband has now
been added another bereavement, the loss of my companion in America,
my brother — Baron Rivar.'
The reputation of the Baron, and the doubt which scandal had thrown
on his assumed relationship to the Countess, were well known to Francis.
'Shot in a gambling-saloon?'
he asked brutally.
'The question is a perfectly natural one on your part,'
she said,
with the impenetrably ironical manner which she could assume on certain
occasions.
'As a native of horse-racing England, you belong to a nation
of gamblers. My brother died no extraordinary death, Mr. Westwick. He sank,
with many other unfortunate people, under a fever prevalent in a Western
city which we happened to visit. The calamity of his loss made the United
States unendurable to me. I left by the first steamer that sailed from New
York — a French vessel which brought me to Havre. I continued my lonely
journey to the South of France. And then I went on to Venice.'
'What does all this matter to me?'
Francis thought to himself. She
paused, evidently expecting him to say something.
'So you have come to
Venice?'
he said carelessly.
'Why?'
'Because I couldn't help it,'
she answered.
Francis looked at her with cynical curiosity.
'That sounds odd,'
he
remarked.
'Why couldn't you help it?'
'Women are accustomed to act on impulse,'
she explained.
'Suppose we say that an impulse has directed my journey? And yet, this is
the last place in the world that I wish to find myself in. Associations that
I detest are connected with it in my mind. If I had a will of my own, I would
never see it again. I hate Venice. As you see, however, I am here. When did
you meet with such an unreasonable woman before? Never, I am sure!'
She
stopped, eyed him for a moment, and suddenly altered her tone.
'When is
Miss Agnes Lockwood expected to be in Venice?'
she asked.
It was not easy to throw Francis off his balance, but that extraordinary
question did it.
'How the devil did you know that Miss Lockwood was
coming to Venice?'
he exclaimed.
She laughed — a bitter mocking laugh.
'Say, I guessed it!'
Something in her tone, or perhaps something in the audacious defiance
of her eyes as they rested on him, roused the quick temper that was in
Francis Warwick.
'Lady Montbarry — !'
he began.
'Stop there!'
she interposed.
'Your brother Stephen's wife
calls herself Lady Montbarry now. I share my title with no woman. Call me
by my name before I committed the fatal mistake of marrying your brother.
Address me, if you please, as Countess Narona.'
'Countess Narona,'
Francis resumed,
'if your object in claiming
my acquaintance is to mystify me, you have come to the wrong man. Speak
plainly, or permit me to wish you good evening.'
'If your object is to keep Miss Lockwood's arrival in Venice a
secret,'
she retorted,
'speak plainly, Mr. Westwick, on your
side, and say so.'
Her intention was evidently to irritate him; and she succeeded.
'Nonsense!'
he broke out petulantly.
'My brother's travelling
arrangements are secrets to nobody. He brings Miss Lockwood here, with Lady
Montbarry and the children. As you seem so well informed, perhaps you know
why she is coming to Venice?'
The Countess had suddenly become grave and thoughtful. She made no
reply. The two strangely associated companions, having reached one extremity
of the square, were now standing before the church of St. Mark. The
moonlight was bright enough to show the architecture of the grand
cathedral in its wonderful variety of detail. Even the pigeons of St. Mark
were visible, in dark closely packed rows, roosting in the archways of the
great entrance doors.
'I never saw the old church look so beautiful by moonlight,'
the
Countess said quietly; speaking, not to Francis, but to herself.
'Good-bye, St. Mark's by moonlight! I shall not see you again.'
She turned away from the church, and saw Francis listening to her with
wondering looks.
'No,'
she resumed, placidly picking up the lost
thread of the conversation,
'I don't know why Miss Lockwood is coming
here, I only know that we are to meet in Venice.'
'By previous appointment?'
'By Destiny,'
she answered, with her head on her breast, and her
eyes on the ground. Francis burst out laughing.
'Or, if you like it
better,'
she instantly resumed,
'by what fools call Chance.'
Francis answered easily, out of the depths of his strong common sense.
'Chance seems to be taking a queer way of bringing the meeting about,'
he said.
'We have all arranged to meet at the Palace Hotel. How is it
that your name is not on the Visitors' List? Destiny ought to have brought
you to the Palace Hotel too.'
She abruptly pulled down her veil.
'Destiny may do that yet!'
she
said.
'The Palace Hotel?'
she repeated, speaking once more to
herself.
'The old hell, transformed into the new purgatory. The place
itself! Jesu Maria! the place itself!'
She paused and laid her hand on her
companion's arm.
'Perhaps Miss Lockwood is not going there with the rest
of you?'
she burst out with sudden eagerness.
'Are you positively sure
she will be at the hotel?'
'Positively! Haven't I told you that Miss Lockwood travels with Lord
and Lady Montbarry? and don't you know that she is a member of the
family? You will have to move, Countess, to our hotel.'
She was perfectly impenetrable to the bantering tone in which he spoke.
'Yes,'
she said faintly,
'I shall have to move to your
hotel.'
Her hand was still on his arm — he could feel her shivering from
head to foot while she spoke. Heartily as he disliked and distrusted her, the
common instinct of humanity obliged him to ask if she felt cold.
'Yes,'
she said.
'Cold and faint.'
'Cold and faint, Countess, on such a night as this?'
'The night has nothing to do with it, Mr. Westwick. How do you suppose
the criminal feels on the scaffold, while the hangman is putting the
rope around his neck? Cold and faint, too, I should think. Excuse my grim
fancy. You see, Destiny has got the rope round my neck — and I
feel it.'
She looked about her. They were at that moment close to the famous cafe
known as 'Florian's.'
'Take me in there,'
she said;
'I must have
something to revive me. You had better not hesitate. You are interested in
reviving me. I have not said what I wanted to say to you yet. It's business,
and it's connected with your theatre.'
Wondering inwardly what she could possibly want with his theatre,
Francis reluctantly yielded to the necessities of the situation, and took her
into the cafe. He found a quiet corner in which they could take their places
without attracting notice.
'What will you have?'
he inquired
resignedly. She gave her own orders to the waiter, without troubling him to
speak for her.
'Maraschino. And a pot of tea.'
The waiter stared; Francis stared. The tea was a novelty (in connection
with maraschino) to both of them. Careless whether she surprised them or
not, she instructed the waiter, when her directions had been complied
with, to pour a large wine-glass-full of the liqueur into a tumbler, and to
fill it up from the teapot.
'I can't do it for myself,'
she remarked,
'my hand trembles so.'
She drank the strange mixture eagerly, hot as it
was.
'Maraschino punch — will you taste some of it?'
she said.
'I
inherit the discovery of this drink. When your English Queen Caroline was on
the Continent, my mother was attached to her Court. That much injured
Royal Person invented, in her happier hours, maraschino punch. Fondly
attached to her gracious mistress, my mother shared her tastes. And I, in
my turn, learnt from my mother. Now, Mr. Westwick, suppose I tell you
what my business is. You are manager of a theatre. Do you want a new
play?'
'I always want a new play — provided it's a good one.'
'And you pay, if it's a good one?'
'I pay liberally — in my own interests.'
'If I write the play, will you read it?'
Francis hesitated.
'What has put writing a play into your head?'
he
asked.
'Mere accident,'
she answered.
'I had once occasion to tell my
late brother of a visit which I paid to Miss Lockwood, when I was last in
England. He took no interest at what happened at the interview, but
something struck him in my way of relating it. He said, "You describe
what passed between you and the lady with the point and contrast of good
stage dialogue. You have the dramatic instinct — try if you can write a
play. You might make money." That put it into my head.'
Those last words seemed to startle Francis.
'Surely you don't want
money!'
he exclaimed.
'I always want money. My tastes are expensive. I have nothing but my
poor little four hundred a year — and the wreck that is left of the other
money: about two hundred pounds in circular notes — no more.'
Francis knew that she was referring to the ten thousand pounds paid by
the insurance offices.
'All those thousands gone already!'
he
exclaimed.
She blew a little puff of air over her fingers.
'Gone like that!'
she answered coolly.
'Baron Rivar?'
She looked at him with a flash of anger in her hard black eyes.
'My affairs are my own secret, Mr. Westwick. I have made you a
proposal — and you have not answered me yet. Don't say No, without thinking
first. Remember what a life mine has been. I have seen more of the world
than most people, playwrights included. I have had strange adventures; I have
heard remarkable stories; I have observed; I have remembered. Are there no
materials, here in my head, for writing a play — if the opportunity is
granted to me?'
She waited a moment, and suddenly repeated her strange
question about Agnes.
'When is Miss Lockwood expected to be in Venice?'
'What has that to do with your new play, Countess?'
The Countess appeared to feel some difficulty in giving that question its
fit reply. She mixed another tumbler full of maraschino punch, and drank
one good half of it before she spoke again.
'It has everything to do with my new play,'
was all she said.
'Answer me.'
Francis answered her.
'Miss Lockwood may be here in a week. Or, for all I know to the
contrary, sooner than that.'
'Very well. If I am a living woman and a free woman in a week's time —
or if I am in possession of my senses in a week's time (don't interrupt me; I
know what I am talking about) — I shall have a sketch or outline of my play
ready, as a specimen of what I can do. Once again, will you read it?'
'I will certainly read it. But, Countess, I don't understand — '
She held up her hand for silence, and finished the second tumbler of
maraschino punch.
'I am a living enigma — and you want to know the right reading of
me,'
she said.
'Here is the reading, as your English phrase goes, in a
nutshell. There is a foolish idea in the minds of many persons that the
natives of the warm climates are imaginative people. There never was a
greater mistake. You will find no such unimaginative people anywhere as you
find in Italy, Spain, Greece, and the other Southern countries. To anything
fanciful, to anything spiritual, their minds are deaf and blind by nature.
Now and then, in the course of centuries, a great genius springs up among
them; and he is the exception which proves the rule. Now see! I, though I am
no genius — I am, in my little way (as I suppose), an exception too. To my
sorrow, I have some of that imagination which is so common among the
English and the Germans — so rare among the Italians, the Spaniards, and
the rest of them! And what is the result? I think it has become a disease in
me. I am filled with presentiments which make this wicked life of mine
one long terror to me. It doesn't matter, just now, what they are. Enough
that they absolutely govern me — they drive me over land and sea at their
own horrible will; they are in me, and torturing me, at this moment! Why
don't I resist them? Ha! but I do resist them. I am trying (with the help of
the good punch) to resist them now. At intervals I cultivate the difficult
virtue of common sense. Sometimes, sound sense makes a hopeful woman
of me. At one time, I had the hope that what seemed reality to me was
only mad delusion, after all — I even asked the question of an English
doctor! At other times, other sensible doubts of myself beset me. Never mind
dwelling on them now — it always ends in the old terrors and superstitions
taking possession of me again. In a week's time, I shall know whether Destiny
does indeed decide my future for me, or whether I decide it for myself. In
the last case, my resolution is to absorb this self-tormenting fancy of mine
in the occupation that I have told you of already. Do you understand me a
little better now? And, our business being settled, dear Mr. Westwick, shall
we get out of this hot room into the nice cool air again?'
They rose to leave the cafe. Francis privately concluded that the
maraschino punch offered the only discoverable explanation of what the
Countess had said to him.