The Marriage of William Ashe Part 65

"Ah, they have found another brother!" he said, politely, and he began to point out to Kitty the various landmarks visible, the a.r.s.enal, the two asylums, San Pietro di Castello.

The new-comers just glanced at the garden apparently, as the Ashes had done on arrival, and promptly followed their guide back into the convent.

Kitty asked a few more questions, then led the way in a hasty return to the garden door, the entrance-hall, and the steps where their gondola was waiting. Nothing was to be seen of the second party. They had pa.s.sed on into the cloisters.

Animation, oddity, inconsequence, all these things Margaret observed in Kitty during luncheon in a restaurant of the Merceria, and various incidents connected with it; animation above all. The Ashes fell in with acquaintance--a fas.h.i.+onable and hara.s.sed mother, on the fringe of the Archangels, accompanied by two daughters, one pretty and one plain, and sore pressed by their demands, real or supposed. The parents were not rich, but the girls had to be dressed, taken abroad, produced at country-houses, at Ascot, and the opera, like all other girls. The eldest girl, a considerable beauty, was an accomplished egotist at nineteen, and regarded her mother as a rather inefficient _dame de compagnie_. Kitty understood this young lady perfectly, and after luncheon, over her cigarette, her little, sharp, probing questions gave the beauty twenty minutes' annoyance. Then appeared a young man, ill-dressed, red-haired, and shy. Carelessly as he greeted the mother and daughters, his entrance, however, transformed them. The mother forgot fatigue; the beauty ceased to yawn; the younger girl, who had been making surrept.i.tious notes of Kitty's costume in the last leaf of her guide-book, developed a charming gush. He was the owner of the Magellan estates and the historic Magellan Castle; a professed hater of "absurd womankind," and, in general, a hunted and self-conscious person.

Kitty gave him one finger, looked him up and down, asked him whether he was yet engaged, and when he laughed an embarra.s.sed "No," told him that he would certainly die in the arms of the Magellan housekeeper.

This got a smile out of him. He sat down beside her, and the two laughed and talked with a freedom which presently drew the attention of the neighboring tables, and made Ashe uncomfortable. He rose, paid the bill, and succeeded in carrying the whole party off to the Piazza, in search of coffee. But here again Kitty's extravagances, the provocation of her light loveliness, as she sat toying with a fresh cigarette and "chaffing" Lord Magellan, drew a disagreeable amount of notice from the Italians pa.s.sing by.

"Mother, let's go!" said the angry beauty, imperiously, in her mother's ear. "I don't like to be seen with Lady Kitty! She's impossible!"

And with cold farewells the three ladies departed. Then Kitty sprang up and threw away her cigarette.

"How those girls bully their mother!" she said, with scorn. "However, it serves her right. I'm sure she bullied hers. Well, now we must go and do something. Ta-ta!"

Lord Magellan, to whom she offered another casual finger, wanted to know why he was dismissed. If they were going sight-seeing, might he not come with them?"

"Oh no!" said Kitty, calmly. "Sight--seeing with people you don't really know is too trying to the temper. Even with one's best friend it's risky."

"Where are you? May I call?" said the young man.

"We're always out," was Kitty's careless reply. "But--"

She considered--

"Would you like to see the Palazzo Vercelli?"

"That magnificent place on the Grand Ca.n.a.l? Very much."

"Meet me there to-morrow afternoon," said Kitty. "Four o'clock."

"Delighted!" said Lord Magellan, making a note on his s.h.i.+rt-cuff. "And who lives there?"

"My mother," said Kitty, abruptly, and walked away.

Ashe followed her in discomfort. This young man was the son of a certain Lady Magellan, an intimate friend of Lady Tranmore's--one of the n.o.blest women of her generation, pure, high-minded, spiritual, to whom neither an ugly word nor thought was possible. It annoyed him that either he or Kitty should be introducing _her_ son to Madame d'Estrees.

It was really tiresome of Kitty! Rich young men with characters yet indeterminate were not to be lightly brought in contact with Madame d'Estrees. Kitty could not be ignorant of it--poor child! It had been one of her reckless strokes, and Ashe was conscious of a sharp annoyance.

However, he said nothing. He followed his companions from church to church, till pictures became an abomination to him. Then he pleaded letters, and went to the club.

"Will you call on maman to-morrow?" said Kitty, as he turned away, looking at him a little askance.

She knew that he had disapproved of her invitation to Lord Magellan. Why had she given it? She didn't know. There seemed to be a kind of revived mischief and fever in the blood, driving her to these foolish and ill-considered things.

Ashe met her question with a shake of the head and the remark, in a decided tone, that he should be too busy.

Privately he thought it a piece of impertinence that Madame d'Estrees should expect either Kitty or himself to appear in her drawing-room at all. That this implied a complete transformation of his earlier att.i.tude he was well aware; he accepted it with a curious philosophy. When he and Kitty first met he had never troubled his head about such things. If a woman amused or interested him in society, so long as his taste was satisfied she might have as much or as little character as she pleased.

It stirred his mocking sense of English hypocrisy that the point should be even raised. But now--how can any individual, he asked himself, with political work to do, affect to despise the opinions and prejudices of society? A politician with great reforms to put through will make no friction round him that he can avoid--unless he is a fool. It weighed sorely, therefore, on his present mind that Madame d'Estrees was in Venice--that she was a person of blemished repute--that he must be and was ashamed of her. It would have been altogether out of consonance with his character to put any obstacle in the way of Kitty's seeing her mother. But he chafed as he had never yet chafed under the humiliation of his relations.h.i.+p to the notorious Margaret Fitzgerald of the forties, who had been old Blackwater's _chere amie_ before she married him, and, as Lady Blackwater, had sacrificed her innocent and defenceless step-daughter to one of her own lovers, in order to secure for him the step-daughter's fortune--black and dastardly deed!

Was it all part of the general growth and concentration that any shrewd observer might have read in William Ashe?--the pressure--enormous, unseen--of the traditional English ideals, English standards, a.s.serting itself at last in a brilliant and paradoxical nature? It had been so--conspicuously--in the case of one of his political predecessors.

Lord Melbourne had begun his career as a person of idle habits and imprudent adventures, much given to coa.r.s.e conversation, and unable to say the simplest thing without an oath. He ended it as the man of scrupulous dignity, tact, and delicacy, who moulded the innocent youth of a girl-queen, to his own lasting honor and England's grat.i.tude. In ways less striking, the same influence of vast responsibilities was perhaps acting upon William Ashe. It had already made him a sterner, tougher, and--no doubt--a greater man.

The defection of William only left Kitty, it seemed, still more greedy of things to see and do. Innumerable sacristans opened all possible doors and unveiled all possible pictures. Bellini succeeded Tintoret, and Carpaccio Bellini. The two sable gondoliers wore themselves out in Kitty's service, and Margaret's kind, round face grew more and more puzzled and distressed. And whence this strange impression that the whole experience was a _flight_ on Kitty's part?--or, rather, that throughout it she was always eagerly expecting, or eagerly escaping from some unknown, unseen pursuer? A glance behind her--a start--a sudden s.h.i.+vering gesture in the shadows of dark churches--these things suggested it, till Margaret herself was caught by the same suppressed excitement that seemed to be alive in Kitty. Did it all point merely to some mental state--to the nervous effects of her illness and her loss?

When they reached home about five o'clock, Kitty was naturally tired out. Margaret put her on the sofa, gave her tea, and tended her, hoping that she might drop asleep before dinner. But just as tea was over, and Kitty was lying curled up, silent and white, with that brooding look which kept Margaret's anxiety about her constantly alive, there was a sudden sound of voices in the anteroom outside.

"Margaret!" cried Kitty, starting up in dismay--"say I'm not at home."

Too late! Their smiling Italian housemaid threw the door open, with the air of one bringing good-fortune. And behind her appeared a tall lady, and an old gentleman hat in hand.

"May we come in, Kitty?" said Mary Lyster, advancing. "Cousin Elizabeth told us you were here."

Kitty had sprung up. The disorder of her fair hair, her white cheeks, and the ghostly thinness of her small, black-robed form drew the curious eyes of Sir Richard. And the oddness of her manner as she greeted them only confirmed the old man's prejudice against her.

However, greeted they were, in some sort of fas.h.i.+on; and Miss French gave them tea. She kept Sir Richard entertained, while Kitty and Mary conversed. They talked perfunctorily of ordinary topics--Venice, its sights, its hotels, and the people staying in them--of Lady Tranmore and various Ashe relations. Meanwhile the inmost thought of each was busy with the other.

Kitty studied the lines of Mary's face and the fas.h.i.+on of her dress.

"She looks much older. And she's not enjoying her life a bit. That's my fault. I spoiled all her chances with Geoffrey--and she knows it. She _hates_ me. Quite right, too."

"Oh, you mean that nonsensical thing last night?" Sir Richard was saying to Margaret French. "Oh no, I didn't go. But Mary, of course, thought she must go. Somebody invited her."

Kitty started.

"You were at the serenata?" she said to Mary.

"Yes, I went with a party from the hotel."

Kitty looked at her. A sudden flush had touched her pale cheeks, and she could not conceal the trembling of her hands.

"That was marvellous, that light on the Salute, wasn't it?"

"Wonderful!--and on the water, too. I saw two or three people I knew--just caught their faces for a second."

"Did you?" said Kitty. And thoughts ran fast through her head. "Did she see Geoffrey?--and does she mean me to understand that she did? How she detests me! If she did see him, of course she supposes that I know all about it, and that he's here for me. Why don't I ask her, straight out, whether she saw him, and make her understand that I don't care twopence?--that she's welcome to him--as far as I'm concerned?"

But some hidden feeling tied her tongue. Mary continued to talk about the serenata, and Kitty was presently conscious that her every word and gesture in reply was closely watched. "Yes, yes, she saw him. Perhaps she'll tell William--or write home to mother?"

And in her excitement she began to chatter fast and loudly, mostly to Sir Richard--repeating some of the Venice tales she had told in the gondola--with much inconsequence and extravagance. The old man listened, his hands on his stick, his eyes on the ground, the expression on his strong mouth hostile or sarcastic. It was a relief to everybody when Ashe's step was heard stumbling up the dark stairs, and the door opened on his friendly and courteous presence.

"Why, Polly!--and Cousin Richard! I wondered where you had hidden yourselves."

Mary's bright, involuntary smile transformed her. Ashe sat down beside her, and they were soon deep in all sorts of gossip--relations, acquaintance, politics, and what not. All Mary's stiffness disappeared.

She became the elegant, agreeable woman, of whom dinner-parties were glad. Ashe plunged into the pleasant malice of her talk, which ranged through the good and evil fortunes--mostly the latter--of half his acquaintance; discussed the debts, the love-affairs, and the follies of his political colleagues or Parliamentary foes; how the Foreign Secretary had been getting on at Balmoral--how so-and-so had been ruined at the Derby and restored to sanity and solvency by the Oaks--how Lady Parham, at Hatfield, had been made to know her place by the French Amba.s.sador--and the like; pa.s.sing thereby a charming half-hour.