Shadows of Flames Part 56

She ran to fetch some photographs of it to show him. Chesney was away in the motor-boat--at Stresa, she believed.... But at that moment Chesney was driving back from Pallanza, having left the motor there to be mended. It had broken down just before he reached the embarcadero, and he had been obliged to row ash.o.r.e. He was in an evil temper. His leg was "drilling" again, and he had had two gla.s.ses of Cognac within an hour.

When he reached the lower terrace he looked up and saw Sophy and Amaldi bending together over the photographs like two children over a picture-book. She was talking eagerly, looking often at Amaldi. There was a pretty flush on her face. Her grey eyes sparkled.... Chesney was so gruff in manner that Amaldi went almost immediately. Sophy sat gazing at her husband with a puzzled expression. She had not yet realised that Chesney had taken a dislike to Amaldi as sudden as his first liking.

"Well, I must say you're making up for lost time!" he threw out roughly.

"How?" she asked, astonished, not getting his meaning.

"Why, a week ago you hadn't a word to throw that chap; now you palaver with him like an old crony."

Sophy reddened with anger.

"Please don't speak to me in this way," she said coldly.

He reddened, too.

"You speak to Amaldi as you d.a.m.n please--I'll speak to you as I d.a.m.n please," he said.

"No," said Sophy, "for I shan't stay to listen to you."

And she gathered up the photographs and went into the house with her head high.

"Women are the devil!" said Chesney, scowling after her. "Women are the devil!" he repeated, flinging himself morosely into a chair, and gazing down at the outstretched leg which ached so infernally. Then he rose, went upstairs and injected a fourth of a grain of morphia into it. He sent word that he would not be down to dinner. At twelve o'clock that night, he took another fourth.

x.x.xIX

Chesney was very much on his guard for two days after that. The pain in his leg was better. He took no more morphia, until just before day on the third morning. The sciatica had again roused him with its fierce stabs. But he took a very moderate dose--only the eighth of a grain. A cup of black coffee before going down to breakfast steadied him. He lay on a wicker chair in the suns.h.i.+ne all the morning--reading between dozes. He looked very pale. Sophy felt sorry for him, although she was still indignant at the way he had spoken to her about Amaldi.

He ate a light lunch and drank two more cups of lye-like coffee after it. He felt so much better that he asked her to come with him to Cerro.

"I'm going to hire a rowboat," he explained. "We'll go trolling together--I'll row and you can fish. Come along. It's a jolly day--not too hot."

But Sophy said that she had ordered a _carrozzella_ to go shopping in Intra for Bobby. "I _must_ get some autumn things ready for him," she said. "I brought so few clothes. And this warm weather won't last much longer."

Chesney felt a spurt of anger, as she made this excuse for not going with him. He had taken a gla.s.s of Cognac, after Sophy had left the dining-room. The wearing out of the morphia left him irritable, and the brandy whipped this irritation. He tried hard to keep himself in hand.

He really wanted her to come with him very much.

"Do come," he said. "Let the Italian woman--let Rosa go for the boy's things. She must know exactly what to buy for children. Do--there's a good girl----"

"No--really, Cecil--I couldn't explain to her. She's very stupid about such things. And Bobby simply must have warmer clothes ready."

"By George! I don't believe you want to come! I believe you're just putting me off with a lot of bally excuses, because you don't want to be with me," he said, glowering at her.

Sophy coloured a little. It was true that she did not want to go with him. She saw too plainly the ugly mood that was gathering in him, and would probably break into a storm of hectoring before night. But, on the other hand, she really felt it necessary to see at once about those warm things for Bobby. He caught cold so easily. The Marchesa had warned her that the weather was apt to change suddenly in October.

"Do you come or do you not?" asked Chesney sharply, watching her.

"I can't to-day, Cecil," she said earnestly. "If you'll wait till to-morrow, I'll go with pleasure. It isn't kind of you to take it like this--as if I wanted to vex you."

"Oh, well; do as you like!" he said, with his ugliest smile. "I've married a '_femme mere_,' it seems. Just as well, perhaps, that it wasn't a '_femme courtisane_.' There might have been ructions sooner or later."

He turned and ran down the steps of the terrace. He was very light on his feet for so big a man. Sophy stood watching, while Luigi handed him his overcoat and steadied the launch at the _banchetta_ while he got in.

Then she saw him dart off at racing speed for Cerro. She drew a breath of relief to think she was not with him. It was then one o'clock. At three she went upstairs to change her tea-gown for the drive to Intra.

As she was putting on her hat, Luigi knocked at the door to say that the Marchese was in the drawing-room. She went down at once, and found that Amaldi had come to bring a note from his mother asking Cecil and herself to lunch at Le Vigne the next day. She said that they would be glad to come--if her husband were well enough. He had been suffering a good deal of late. While they were talking, Luigi came again to say that the _carrozzella_ was waiting. Amaldi rose at once, but she said:

"No--don't hurry away. I'm only going shopping. I can go just as well a little later."

But though Amaldi sat down again, they could not find the pleasant, natural ease of their other talk over the photographs of "Sweet-Waters."

There was a constraint on them both. Sophy asked about the Marchesa and the autumn crops at Le Vigne. They were talking in this rather forced, desultory fas.h.i.+on, when she heard Cecil's step coming fast up the terrace stairs.

He, in the meantime, had looked in vain at Cerro for the rowboat that he wanted. This, of course, put him in a still worse humour. He had also miscalculated the duration of that eighth of morphia taken in the early morning. Its effects had entirely worn off by two o'clock. This left him stranded at Cerro, with that gone feeling of intense weakness. He went from the boat-yard to the little _osteria_, and asked for Cognac. Of course there was none; but the Padrone, who spoke a sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.d French, explained that they had the most excellent _Grappa_. In his opinion, _Grappa_ was superior to all the Cognac in the world.

"_Q'est ce que c'est que ce sacre 'Grappa'?_" Chesney had growled. Then the Padrone explained, and further illuminated his explanation by bringing a bottle of the clear white, fiery liquor--one of the fieriest and most heady of all liquors--the native spirits of Italy distilled from the must of grapes. Chesney, not aware of its strength, drank several gla.s.ses. This made him feel so much more "fit" that he drank yet another before leaving. By the time he was halfway across the lake on his way back, his brain was in flames from the ardent spirit. He found himself clenching his teeth till his jaw ached, in a spasm of vague rage against everything--every one! Then he recalled Sophy's refusal to go with him--and his anger concentrated on her.

When he ran up the terrace steps at Villa Bianca, fifteen minutes later, he was half-blind with unreasoning fury. Hearing voices in the drawing-room, he tore open the door and burst in on Sophy and Amaldi.

The _Grappa_ had made his face dead-white and his blue eyes black. He looked terrible, towering there, glaring at them speechless for the first second. Then he strode forward and took Sophy by the arm.

"So you lied to me!" he said. "You lied to me! You wanted to stay here alone for your----"

Amaldi also took a step forward. His face, too, was ghastly. Chesney whirled on him, releasing Sophy's arm. She fell back against the wall, grasping at the window curtain for support. She seemed to press against the hard stone of the wall, as though trying to melt into it.

Chesney, his head lowered between his shoulders, roared at Amaldi like the bull he resembled.

"You d.a.m.ned little sneak, get out of here! Out of this house!" he shouted.

Amaldi looked him in the eyes.

"'_Charbonnier est maitre chez lui_,'" (A coal-heaver is master in his own house), he said icily. "I will go. But I will give you a gentleman's chance--I will send you my seconds."

Chesney vented a great "Ha!" of utter, insolent derision.

"Why, you little emasculated Don Juan---- You----" he spat an unmentionable name--"d'you think I'd fight one of your tin-soldier farces with you? Clear out!"

"Coward!" said Amaldi, in that same low, icy voice.

Then Chesney, inarticulate with rage, lifted his walking-stick and rushed on him. Amaldi was a master swords-man. With his own stick he parried the other's blows. Once, twice, thrice he parried; then, suddenly, by a quick, sharp stroke across the wrist, disarmed him.

Chesney stood dazed for an instant by the unexpectedness of the thing.

As he stood thus, Amaldi left the room. But even as he did so Chesney broke from his trance and leaped after him. At once Sophy had her arms about him. She clung desperately, swinging round in front of him, hanging upon him with all her weight and strength.

"You shall not! You shall not!" she kept saying through her set teeth.

It was impossible for him to move quickly with the tall, frantic woman clinging to him, adapting herself to all his movements with supple instinct. He could not tear himself loose from her without hurting her brutally. He was not so lost as to do that. At last he caught the folds of Sophy's blouse over her breast in a fierce grip, dragged her to her feet, shook her to and fro as he held her. His whole face was a distorted snarl.

"Be quiet!" he ground out. "Keep still! Your lover's safe ... for this time...."