Chapter Thirteen. A Discovery in Ebury Street.

The soft, musical Tuscan tongue, the language which Gemma spoke always with her lover, is full of quaint sayings and wise proverbs. The assertion that “L’amore della donna è come il vino di Champagni; se non si beve subito, ricade in fondo al calice” is a daily maxim of those light-hearted, happy, indolent dwellers north and south of Arno’s Valley, from grey old Lucca, with her crumbling city gates and ponderous walls, across the mountains, and plains to where the high towers of Siena stand out clear-cut like porcelain against the fiery blaze of sunset. Nearly every language has an almost similar proverb—a proverb which is true indeed, but, like many another equally wise, is little heeded.

When Armytage and Gemma had arrived in London, he had not been a little surprised at the address where she stated some friends of hers resided. While still in the train, before she reached London, she took from her purse a soiled and carefully treasured piece of paper, whereon was written, “76, Bridge Avenue, Hammersmith”; and to this house they drove, after depositing their heavy baggage in the cloakroom. They found it a poor, wretched thoroughfare off King Street, and in the wet evening it looked grey, depressing, and unutterably miserable after the brightness of Italy. Suddenly the cab pulled up before the house indicated—a small two-storied one—but it was evident that the person they sought no longer lived there, for a board was up announcing that the house was to let. Armytage, after knocking at the door and obtaining no response, rapped at the neighbouring house, and inquired whether they were aware of the address of Mr Nenci, who had left. From the good woman who answered his inquiries he obtained the interesting fact that, owing to non-payment of the weekly rent, the landlord had a month ago seized the goods, and the foreigner, who had resided there some six months, had disappeared, and, being deeply in debt among the neighbouring small shops, had conveniently forgotten to leave his address.

“Was Mr Nenci married?” asked Charlie Armytage, determined to obtain all the information he could.

“Yes, sir,” the woman answered. “His wife was a black-faced, scowling Italian, who each time she passed me looked as though she’d like to stick a knife into me. And all because I one day complained of ’em throwing a lot of rubbish over into my garden. My husban’, ’e says ’e’d go in and talk to ’em, but I persuaded him not to. Them foreigners don’t have any manners. And you should just have seen the state they left the ’ouse in! Somethin’ awful, the lan’lord says.”

“Then you haven’t the slightest idea where they’ve gone?”

“No, sir. Back to their own country, I hope, for London’s better off without such rubbish.”

Returning to the cab, he told Gemma of the departure of her friends, and suggested that for the present she should stay at the Hotel Victoria, in Northumberland Avenue, while he took up his bachelor quarters in Ebury Street. Therefore they drove back again to Charing Cross; and having seen her comfortably installed in the hotel, he drove to his own rooms.

He had written to his housekeeper from Paris, and on entering his cosy little flat, with its curiously decorated rooms with their Moorish lounges and hangings, found a bright fire, a comfortable chair ready placed for him, his spirit-stand and a syphon of soda ready to hand, and Mrs Wright, his housekeeper, welcoming him back cordially, and expressing the hope that his journey had been a pleasant one.

Having deposited his bag, he washed, dressed, swallowed a whisky-and-soda, and drove back to the Victoria, where he dined with his well-beloved.

At eleven o’clock next morning, according to his promise, he came to the hotel, and they drove out in a taxi to see some of the principal streets of London. She had chosen a dress of dark grey, which fitted her perfectly, and beneath her large black hat her fair face and blue eyes looked the perfect incarnation of innocence and ingenuousness. As he had anticipated, all was strange to her, and in everything she became deeply interested. To her, London was a revelation after the quiet idleness of Tuscany. They drove along the busy Strand, past the Law Courts, down Fleet Street with its crowd of lounging printers, and up Ludgate Hill. At St. Paul’s they alighted and entered the Cathedral. Its exterior was admired, but at its bare interior she was disappointed. She had expected the Duomo of London to be resplendent in gilt and silver altars, with holy pictures, but instead found a great, gaunt building, grey, silent, and depressing.

Armytage noticed the blank look upon her beautiful countenance, and asked her her opinion.

“It is fine, very fine,” she answered in her pure Tuscan. “But how bare it is!”

“This is not a Catholic country, like yours,” he explained. “Here we don’t believe in gaudy altars, or pictures of the Vergine Annunziata.”

“Are all your churches the same, Nino?” she inquired. “Are there no altars?”

“Only the central one, and that is never golden, as in Italy.”

He pointed out to her tombs of great men about whom she had read long ago in her school days at the Convent of San Paolo della Croce, in Florence, and in them she was much interested. But afterwards, when they drove round St. Paul’s churchyard, into Cheapside, where the traffic was congested and progress was slow, she looked upon the mighty, crowded city with eyes wide-open in wonder as a child’s. At every point she indicated something which she had never before seen, and Bennett’s clock striking midday caused her as much delight as if she had been a girl of twelve. Hers was an extraordinary temperament. As he sat beside her, listening to her original remarks anent things which to his world-weary eyes were so familiar as to be unnoticeable, he saw how genuinely ingenuous she was, how utterly unlike the callous adventuress which once, in Livorno, he feared her to be.

To show and explain to her all the objects of interest they passed was to him an intense pleasure.

They returned by way of Cannon Street, where he pointed out the great warehouses whence emanated those objects so dear to the feminine heart—hats and dresses; past the Post Office, with its lines of red mail-carts ready to start for the various termini; along Newgate Street with its grim prison, across the Holborn Viaduct, and thence along Oxford and Regent Street to the hotel.

“How busy and self-absorbed every one seems!” she again remarked. “How gigantic this city seems! Its streets bewilder me.”

“Ah, piccina mia,” he answered, “you’ve only seen a very tiny portion of London. There are more people in a single parish here than in the whole of Florence.”

“And they all talk English, while I don’t understand a word!” she said, pouting prettily. “I do so wish I could speak English.”

“You will learn very soon,” he answered her. “In a couple of months or so you’ll be able to go out alone and make yourself understood.”

“Ah no!” she declared with a slight sigh. “Your English is so difficult—oh, so very difficult!—that I shall never, never be able to speak it.”

“Wait and see,” he urged. “When we are married, I shall speak English to you always, and then you’ll be compelled to learn,” he laughed.

“But, Nino,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon the crowd of persons passing and repassing, “why are all these people in such a dreadful hurry? Surely there’s no reason for it?”

“It is business, dearest,” he answered. “Here, in London, men are bent on money-making. Nine-tenths of these men you see are struggling fiercely to live, notwithstanding the creases in their trousers, and the glossiness of their silk hats; the other tenth are still discontented, although good fortune has placed them beyond the necessity of earning their living. In London, no man is contented with his lot, even if he’s a millionaire; whereas in your country, if a man has a paltry ten thousand lire a year, he considers himself very lucky, takes life easily, and enjoys himself.”

“Ah,” she said, just as the cab pulled up before the hotel entrance, where half a dozen Americans, men and women, lounging in wicker chairs, began to comment upon her extreme beauty, “in London every one is so rich.”

“No, not every one,” he answered, laughing. “Very soon your views of London will become modified;” and he sprang out, while the grey-haired porter, resplendent in gilt livery, assisted her to alight.

An incident had, however, occurred during the drive which had passed unnoticed by both Gemma and her companion. While they were crossing Trafalgar Square, a man standing upon the kerb glanced up at her in quick surprise, and, by the expression on his face, it was evident that he recognised her.

For a few moments his eyes followed the vehicle, and seeing it enter Northumberland Avenue, he hurried swiftly across the Square, and halted at a respectable distance, watching her ascend the hotel steps with Armytage.

Then, with a muttered imprecation, the man turned on his heel and strode quickly away towards St. Martin’s Lane.

When, a quarter of an hour later, Armytage was seated with her at luncheon in the great table d’hôte room, with its heavy gilding, its flowers and orchestral music, she, unconscious of the sensation her beauty was causing among those in her vicinity expressed fear of London. It was too enormous, too feverish, too excited for her ever to venture out alone, she declared. But he laughed merrily at her misgivings, and assured her that very soon she would be quite at home among her new surroundings.

“Would you think very ill of me, piccina, if I left you alone all day to-morrow?” he asked presently, not without considerable hesitation.

“Why?” she inquired, with a quick look of suspicion.

“No, no,” he smiled, not failing to notice the expression on her face. “I’m not going to call on any ladies, piccina. The fact is, I’ve had a pressing invitation for a day’s shooting from an uncle in the country, and it is rather necessary, from a financial point of view, that I should keep in with the old boy. You understand?”

“I’ll go down by the early train,” he said, “and I’ll be back again here by nine to dine with you.” Then, turning to the waiter standing behind his chair, he inquired whether he spoke Italian.

“I am Italian, signore,” the man answered.

“Then, if the signorina is in any difficulty to-morrow, you will assist her?”

“Certainly, signore; my number is 42,” the man said, whisking off the empty plates and rearranging the knives.

“I wouldn’t go, only it is imperative for one or two reasons,” he explained to her. “In the morning you can take a cab, and the waiter will tell the driver that you want to go for an hour or so in the West—remember, the West End—not the East End. Then you will return to lunch, and have a rest in the afternoon. You know well that I’ll hasten back to you, dearest, at the earliest possible moment.”

“Yes,” she said, “go, by all means. You’ve often told me you like a day’s shooting, and I certainly do not begrudge my poor Nino any little pleasure.”

“Then you are sure you don’t object to being left alone?”

“Not in the least,” she laughed, as with that chic which was so charming she raised her wine-glass to her pretty lips.

When they had finished luncheon she went to her room, while he smoked a cigarette; then, when she re-appeared, he drove her to his own chambers in Ebury Street.

“My place is a bit gloomy, I’m afraid,” he explained on the way. “But we can chat there without interruption. In the hotel it is impossible.”

“No place is gloomy with my Nino,” she answered.

His arm stole around her slim waist, and he pressed her to him more closely.

“And you must not mind my servant,” he exclaimed. “She’s been in our family for twenty years, and will naturally regard you with considerable suspicion, especially as you are a foreigner, and she can’t speak to you.”

“Very well,” she laughed. “I quite understand. Woman-servants never like the advent of a wife.”

Presently they alighted, and he opened the door of the flat with his latchkey.

“Welcome to my quarters, piccina,” he exclaimed as she entered the tiny, dimly lit hall, and glanced round admiringly.

“How pretty!” she exclaimed. “Why, it is all Moorish!” looking up at the silk-embroidered texts from the Korân with which the walls were draped.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said happily; and together they passed on into his sitting-room, a spacious apartment, the windows of which were filled with wooden lattices, the walls draped with embroidered fabrics, the carpet the thickest and richest from an Eastern loom, the stools, lounges, and cosy-corners low and comfortable, and the ceiling hidden by a kind of dome-shaped canopy of yellow silk.

Slowly she gazed around in rapt admiration.

“I delight in a Moorish room, and this is the prettiest and most complete I have ever seen,” she declared. “My Nino has excellent taste in everything.”

“Even in the choice of a wife—eh?” he exclaimed, laughing, as he bent swiftly and kissed her ere she could draw away.

She raised her laughing eyes to his, and shrugged her shoulders.

“Don’t you find the place gloomy?” he asked.

“My friends generally go in for old oak furniture, or imitation Chippendale. I hate both.”

“So do I,” she assured him. “When we are married, Nino, I should like to have a room just like this for myself—only I’d want a piano,” she added, with a smile.

“A piano in a Moorish room!” he exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that be somewhat out of place? Long pipes and a darbouka or two, like these, would be more in keeping with Moorish ideas;” and he indicated a couple of drums of earthenware covered with skin, to the monotonous music of which the Arab and Moorish women are in the habit of dancing.

“But you have an English table here,” she exclaimed, crossing to it, “and there are photographs on it. Arab never tolerate portraits. It’s entirely against their creed.”

“Yes,” he admitted; “that’s true. I’ve never thought of it before.”

At that instant she bent quickly over one of the half-dozen photographs in fancy frames.

Then, taking it in her hand, she advanced swiftly to the window, and examined it more closely in the light. “Who is this?” she demanded in a fierce, harsh voice.

“A friend of mine,” he replied, stepping up to her and glancing over her shoulder at the portrait. “He’s an army officer—Major Gordon Maitland.”

“Maitland!” she cried, her face in an instant pale to the lips. “And he is a friend of yours, Nino—you know him?”

“Yes, he is a friend of mine,” Armytage replied, sorely puzzled at her sudden change of manner. “But why? Do you also know him?”

She held her breath; her face had in that instant become drawn and haggard, her pointed chin sank upon her breast in an attitude of hopeless despair, her clear blue eyes were downcast; but no answer passed her trembling lips.

This sudden, unexpected discovery that the Major was acquainted with the man she loved held her dumb in shame, terror, and dismay. It had crushed from her heart all hope of love, of life, of happiness.