The Venetians · Chapter 24 (2/2)

“Do you know me so little as that?” she said. “Don’t you know that I would cut my tongue out⁠—that I would die on the rack, as tortured prisoners died in Venice hundreds of years ago⁠—rather than I would speak one word that could hurt you?”

“Forgive me, Si’ora. Yes, yes, I know that you would not willingly injure me⁠—but you might ruin my life by a careless speech. You have aroused my wife’s suspicions already⁠—suspicious of she knows not what⁠—vague jealousies that have made her unhappy. She could not understand your impulsive greeting; and I could not tell her how much you were my friend, without telling her the why and the wherefore. I am hemmed round with difficulty when I am questioned about you. If you were old and ugly it would be different⁠—but I dare not avow my interest in a young and beautiful woman without revealing the claim she has upon my friendship⁠—and in that claim lies the secret of my crime. Do you understand, Lisa?”

“Yes, I understand,” she answered moodily.

Her aunt lingered on the threshold of the door, the boy tugging at her skirts, and urging her to go out. Battersea Park was his favourite playground. He carried a wooden horse with a fine development of head, but with only a stick and a wheel to represent his body, which equine compromise he bestrode and galloped upon in the course of his airing. La Zia carried his pail and the shovel with which he was wont to scrape up the loose gravel in the roadway as blissfully as if he had been disporting himself beside the waves that roll gaily in to splash the children at play on the sands.

La Zia looked at her niece interrogatively, and the niece nodded “go,” whereupon aunt and boy vanished. She was always bidden to stop when Sefton was the visitor.

“You need not be frightened,” said Lisa. “We are not likely to meet again, as we met on the river. It was so long since I had seen you! I was taken by surprise, and forgot everything except that it was you, whom I thought I should never see again. I shall be wiser in future, now that I know more about you, and now that I have seen your wife.”

“That is my own good Lisa! She is a sweet wife, is she not? Worthy that a man should love her?”

“Yes, she is worthy; and she is fair and beautiful, like the Mary-lilies. I don’t wonder that you love her. And she has never done any evil thing in her life, has she? If a young man had said to her, ‘Come with me to Venice, and be my little wife,’ she would not have believed him, as I did. She would have said, ‘You must marry me first in the church.’ She would have believed in nothing but the church and the priest. She was not ignorant and poor, like me.”

“Lisa, do you suppose that I was making any unkind comparisons? I said only that she is worthy to be loved⁠—that all men and women must love and honour her, and that her husband must needs adore her. And now, Si’ora, promise me that you will respect her jealousy, which is only the shadow cast by her love, and that you will do or say nothing that can make her unhappy.”

“I will do or say nothing to hurt you,” Lisa answered, somewhat sullenly. “She has little need to be unhappy, having all your love. But she is very sweet, as you say. She spoke to me graciously the other night, although she had a curious look, as if she were half afraid of me. Yes, she is beautiful. Did you know her and love her long before that day on the Lido, when you were so friendly with my aunt and me?”

“No, Si’ora.”

“What! your heart was free then?”

“Free as air.”

“And afterwards⁠—when I saw you at the opera? When you came to our lodgings?”

“Ah, then I had seen her, I was captive. I loved her at first sight, but went about foolishly hiding my chains, trying not to love her. And now that we understand each other fully upon one point⁠—now that I can trust my happiness in your hands, I want to talk to you about yourself, Lisa. I am not overfond of that Mr. Sefton with whom you are so friendly.”

“No more am I overfond of him. He is kind to us. He brings toys for Paolo; and he takes us on the river. He is the only friend little Zinco has allowed me to have.”

“He gives Paolo toys? And he gave you that diamond necklace, did he not?”

“Gave me my necklace! I should think not! Do you suppose I would be beholden to him, or to anyone? Do you know how many bracelets and brooches I have sent back to the fools who bought them for me? Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires⁠—all the colours of the rainbow. I just look at them and laugh, and carry them off to little Zinco, and he packs them up and sends them back to the giver, with his compliments, and his assurance that Signora Vivanti is not in the habit of accepting gifts. Mr. Sefton give me my necklace! Why, my necklace is my fortune!”

And then she told him how she and la Zia had scraped and saved, and lived upon pasta and Swiss cheese, in order to buy that necklace from Mr. Attenborough, who had allowed her to pay a considerable part of the price by weekly instalments. It was a bankrupt Contessa’s necklace⁠—a Contessa who had run away from her husband.

“I am very glad to hear that,” said Vansittart. “I was afraid all was not well when I saw my little Si’ora blazing in diamonds.”

“Did they blaze?” she cried, delighted. “You thought that I was like some of the singers who spend all their salary on a carriage, and grand dinners, and fine silk gowns⁠—a hundred pounds for a single gown! I wanted to buy something that would last, something that I could turn into money whenever I liked.”

“But your diamonds yield no interest, Si’ora, so they are hardly a wise investment.”

“I don’t want interest; I want something that is pretty to look at. Did my diamonds blaze? Your sister’s is the only grand house I have sung at. I sing for Mrs. Hawberk, but her house is not grand, and I take no money for singing at her parties. But I had ten guineas for singing at Lady Hartley’s⁠—ten guineas for two little songs.”

“Bravissima, Si’ora! There are plenty of drawing-rooms in London where you may pick up gold and silver. There is a freshness about you and your singing that people will like, as a pleasant relief, after a grand opera. But now, Cara, I would earnestly warn you to have very little to do with Mr. Sefton, to keep him at the furthest possible distance. Believe me, he is a dangerous acquaintance.”

“Not to me,” said Lisa, snapping her fingers. “He is nothing to me, niente, niente, niente! My heart has never beat any faster for his coming. I am never sorry when he goes. He is kind to Paolo, and my aunt thinks him a delightful gentleman. He tells us stories about the lords and ladies he knows, and he helps me with my English. He makes me read to him. He tells me the meaning of words, and teaches me how to pronounce them. I should not have got on nearly so fast without his help.”

“Dangerous help, Si’ora. You are encouraging a traitor. Be sure his kindness springs from no good motive. He doesn’t want to marry you.”

“Do you think I want him for a husband?” exclaimed Lisa, with supreme contempt. “I shall never marry. No one will ever have the right to question me about Paolo’s father.”

There was a dignity in this assertion which showed that the unsophisticated daughter of the Isles had made some progress in social science. She knew at least that a husband was a person who might call her to account for her past life.

“I tell you that I don’t care for Mr. Sefton; but he amuses la Zia and me, and our lives would be very dull without him.”

“Better dullness than danger. The man is bad, Lisa, bad to the core. Some men are made so. In the county where he was born, among the neighbours who respected his father and mother, and who tolerate him for his name’s sake, he is neither trusted nor liked. Before he left the University, when he had only just come of age, there was a village tragedy in which he was known to be implicated, a tenant-farmer’s pretty daughter drowned in the milldam with her nameless child. The girl’s father was a tenant on the Sefton estate, as his father and grandfather had been before him. A connection of that kind with most young men would be sacred⁠—but Wilfrid Sefton had no compunction. He was saved from exposure, for the love that the sufferers bore to his people; but the scandal became pretty well known in the neighbourhood, and the friends of his family who might have pitied him for the awful consequences of his sin, were disgusted by the indifference with which he treated the tragedy⁠—living it down with a brazen front, and later, when he was owner of the estate, turning the girl’s father out of his holding, on the flimsiest excuse. Do you think such a man as that is worthy to be admitted to the home of an unprotected woman on a footing of friendship?”

“No, no, he is not worthy. If you tell me to shut my door against him, the door shall be shut. But is it true? Did this poor girl really drown herself because she could not bear to live disgraced? Are there women in England like that?”

“Yes, Lisa. There have been many such women. This girl belonged to the yeoman class⁠—her forefathers had been settled in the land for two hundred years, sons of the soil, respected by their neighbours, and as proud of their good name as if it had been a patent of nobility; and this girl was young and sensitive. I have heard her story from those who saw her grow up from infancy to womanhood⁠—gentle, yielding, guileless⁠—an easy prey for an unscrupulous young man with a handsome face and a winning manner. He won her, blighted her, murdered her. Yes, Lisa, his crime came nearer murder than that dagger-thrust at Florian’s.”

“Don’t speak of that,” she cried, putting her fingers on his lips. “We must forget it. There never was such a thing⁠—or at least you had nothing to do with it. It was Fate, not your will, that he should die like that. It was to be. Non si muove foglia che Iddio non voglia. I am glad you have told me about that girl. I never liked Mr. Sefton⁠—never really liked him. However pleasant he was I had always a feeling that he was hiding something. There is a light in his eyes as if he were laughing at one. He is like Mephistopheles in the opera. It is not in his nature to be sorry for anyone.”

“And you will give him his congé?”

“Yes; he shall come here no more. I shall not let him know that you have told me that poor girl’s story. He might want to fight a duel with you, if he knew what you have said of him.”

“I don’t think he would, Lisa; but it is wiser to tell him nothing. You can say you have been told you are compromising yourself by receiving his visits.”

“Little Zinco does not love him,” said Lisa; “he will be pleased to see him dismissed. He says I should have no friend but him and my piano.”

“Zinco is a worthy soul.”

“Is he not? He pretends to be very proud of my success. For the first year of my engagement at the Apollo I used to give him a quarter of my salary; but now I only pay him for my lessons. He goes on teaching me grand opera. It broadens and refines my style, he tells me⁠—but Mr. Hawberk implores me never to leave off being vulgar. It would be my ruin, he says.”

“Be yourself. Lisa⁠—bright, candid, and original. Your transparent nature will always pass for genius, from its rarity. And now goodbye. I must not come here any more. I came today because I felt I had a duty to do as your friend, but my wife would not like to hear of me as your visitor. She and I love each other too well not to be easily jealous.”

“It has been sweet to see you,” answered Lisa, gravely, “but I will not ask you to come again. Yes, yes,” she added musingly. “I understand! Love is always jealous.”

She gave him her hand, and bade him goodbye, with a gentle resignation which touched him more deeply than her passionate moods had ever done. The beautiful dark eyes looked into his, and said, “I love you still⁠—shall love you always,” in language which a man need not be a coxcomb to understand. And so they parted, each believing that this might be a final parting.

Vansittart looked at his watch as he ran downstairs. It was nearly six o’clock. At the bottom of the last flight he met Sefton, who was entering with an easy air and self-satisfied smile, which changed to a frown as he recognized Lisa’s departing visitor.

“I have just come from Charles Street,” he said, recovering himself instantly, “where I expected to find you. But I dare say you have been more amused here than you would have been there. The narrow footpaths and shady woodland walks are generally pleasanter than the broad high-road.”

“Is that a truism, or an allegory? If the latter, it bears no application to my visit here.”

“Doesn’t it really? You don’t mean that you, Mrs. Vansittart’s husband, call upon Signora Vivanti in the beaten way of friendship?”

“In friendship, at least, if not in the beaten way; but whatever my motive in visiting that lady, I don’t admit your right to question me about it; or”⁠—with a laugh⁠—“to resort to allegory. Good day to you.”

He ran down the steps to his hansom, and Sefton went slowly up the three flights of stone stairs which led to Signora Vivanti’s bower, brooding angrily upon his encounter with Vansittart. He had never been able to extort any admissions from Lisa about this man. She had been secret as the grave; yet he was convinced that her past history was the history of an intrigue with Vansittart; and after that effusive greeting from the boat, and remembering the expression of her face more than two years ago, as she hung upon his arm on the Embankment, he was convinced that she loved him still, and that this passion was the cause of her coldness to him, Wilfred Sefton.