“Thank you, sir. I have already read it.” But I knew he could not read English.
A short, stout little man, shabbily dressed, pushed his way forward to the table, saying—
“Luba Lazareff is a well-known revolutionist, your excellency. The French maker of bombs, Gustave Lemaire, is her lover—not this gentleman. Gustave only left Ostrog yesterday.” The speaker was, it was plain, an agent of secret police.
“And where is Lemaire now? I gave orders for his arrest some days ago.”
“He was found this morning by the patrol on the road to Schumsk, recognised and shot.”
At this poor little Luba gave vent to a piercing scream, and burst into a torrent of bitter tears.
“You fiends!” she cried. “You have shot my Gustave! He is dead—dead!”
“There was no doubt, I suppose, as to his identity?” asked the General.
“None, your Excellency. Some papers found upon the body have been forwarded to us with the report.”
“Then let the girl be shot also. She aided him in the manufacture of the bombs.”
“Shot!” I gasped, utterly staggered. “What do you mean, General? You will shoot a poor defenceless girl—and in face of that ukase before you—in face of my demand for her protection! I have promised her marriage,” I cried in desperation, “and you condemn her to execution!”
“My Emperor has given me orders to quell the rebellion, and all who make bombs for use against the Government must die. His Majesty gave me orders to execute all such,” said the official sternly. “You, sir, will have safe-conduct to whatever place you wish to visit. Take the girl away.”
“But, General, reflect a moment whether this is not—”
“I never reflect, sir,” he cried angrily; and rising from his chair with outstretched hand, he snapped—
“How much of my time are you going to lose over the wench? Take her away—and let it be done at once.”
The poor condemned girl, blanched to the lips and trembling from head to foot, turned quickly to me, and in a few words in French thanked me and again kissed my hand, with the brief words, “Farewell, you have done your best. God will reward you!”
Then, with one accord, we all turned, and together went mournfully forth into the street.
A lump arose in my throat, for I saw, as the General pointed out, that my pretended ukase did not extend beyond my own person. Luba was a Russian subject, and therefore under the Russian martial law.
Of a sudden, however, just as we emerged into the roadway, the unfortunate girl, at whose side I still remained, turned, and raising her tearful face to mine, with sudden impetuosity kissed me.
Then, before any of us were aware of her intention, she turned, and rushed back into the room where the General was still sitting.
The Cossacks dashed back after her, but ere they reached the chamber there was a terrific explosion, the air was filled with débris, the back of the building was torn completely out, and when, a few minutes later, I summoned courage to enter and peep within the wrecked room, I saw a scene that I dare not describe here in cold print.
Suffice it to say that the bodies of Luba Lazareff and General Stephen Krasiloff were unrecognisable, save for the shreds of clothing that still remained.
Luba had used her bomb in revenge for Gustave’s death, and she had freed Russia of the heartless tyrant who had condemned her to die.
An hour later I found the blackened ruins of the house of Countess Alexandrovsky, but hearing no news of Bindo I returned to the car, and set out again towards the Austrian frontier.
Yes, that brief run in Russia was full of excitement.
CHAPTER IX
CONCERNING THE OTHER FELLOW
Last spring Count Bindo again renewed his lease of the furnished villa on the Viale dei Colli, that beautiful drive that winds up behind the Arno from the Porta Romana, in Florence, past San Miniato. It was a fine old place, standing in its own grounds, and was the German Embassy in the days when the Lily City was the Italian capital.
There were reasons for this. Sir Charles Blythe was living at the Grand, and Henderson was at the Hôtel de la Ville. A coup was intended at one of the jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio—a place where it was known that there were a quantity of valuable pearls.
It was not, however, successful; for certain difficulties arose that were insurmountable.
The trio left Florence at the beginning of May, but I was left alone with the car and with the Italian servants to idle away the days as best I could. They had all three gone to Aix, I think.
The only other Englishman left in Florence appeared to be a man I had recently re-encountered, named Charlie Whitaker. He and I had become great friends, as we had been several years before. I often took him for a run on the car, to Bologna, Livorno, or Siena, and we used to meet nearly every evening.
One stifling August night Florence lay gasping.
Above the clatter of the café, the music, the laughter of women and the loud chatter in Italian, the strident cries of the newsvendors rose in the great moonlit Piazza, with its huge equestrian statue of the beloved Vittorio looming dark against the steely sky.
Only the popolo, the merry, brown-faced, easy-going Florentines, were still in the sun-baked city. All Society, even the richer tradesmen, and certainly all the foreign residents, had fled—all of the latter save two, Charlie and myself.
You, who know the quaint old mediæval city in the winter “season,” when the smart balls are given at the Corsini or the Strozzi, when the Cascine is filled with pretty women at four o’clock, and the jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio put forth their imitation cinquecento wares, would not know it in August, when beneath that fiery Tuscan sun it is as a city of the dead by day, while at night the lower classes come forth from their slums to idle, to gossip, and to enjoy the bel fresco after the heat and burden of the day.
On an August night the little dark-eyed seamstress sits and enjoys her ice at the same tin-topped table at the Gambrinus where the foreign Princess has sat in April. In winter Florence is a city of the wealthy; in summer it is given over entirely to the populace. So great is the sweltering, breathless heat, that everyone who can leave Florence in August leaves it. The great villas and palaces are closed; the Florence Club, that most exclusive institution in Europe, is shut up; the hotels move up to Camaldoli, to Pracchia, or to Abetone; and to be seen in Florence in those blazing days causes wonder and comment.
Charlie and I were the only two foreigners in Florence. I had remained on at the orders of Bindo, and Charlie—well, he remained for the best of reasons, because he hadn’t the money with which to go up into the mountains, or down to the sea.
Charlie Whitaker was an “outsider,” I knew, but not by any fault of his own. He lived in Florence mostly on the charity of his friends. A tall, lithe, good-looking fellow of thirty-two, he came of a Yorkshire stock, and for seven or eight years had lived the gay life of town, and been a member of the Stock Exchange. Left very well off, he had developed keen business instincts, and had been so successful that in three years he had gained a comfortable fortune by speculation. He bought a bijou house in Deanery Street, off Park Lane, turned it inside out, and made a pretty bachelor residence of it.
Half London knew Charlie Whitaker. I first met him when he was about to purchase a new “Napier.” He gave smart luncheon-parties at the Bachelors, dinners at the Savoy, and was the pet of certain countesses of the smart set. Indeed, he led the London life of a man of ample means untrammelled with a woman, until, of a sudden, he failed. Why, nobody knew; even to his most intimate friends the crisis was a complete mystery.
I only know that I met him in the Strand one night. He seemed sad and pensive. Then, when he grasped my hand in farewell, he said—
“Well, Ewart, good-night. I may see you again some day.”
Even my friendship with him brought criticism upon me—modest chauffeur that I was. Why did I make an intimate of such a man? Some declared him to be an absconding bankrupt; others cast suspicion that he had fled from England because of some grave scandal; while others made open charges against him in the Club that were cruel to a degree.
Up at the villa, however, he was always welcome. I alone knew that he was a man of sterling worth, that his misfortunes were none of his own seeking, and that the charges against him were all false. He had made a big speculation and had unfortunately burnt his fingers—that was all.
And on this hot, feverish night, with the clear white moon shining down upon the Piazza, we sat to gossip, to drink our iced bock, and to smoke our long Toscano cigars, which, to the resident in Italy, become so palatable.
I knew that Charlie had had his romance, one of the strangest of all that I had known. Crushed, hipped, bankrupt, almost penniless, he had never mentioned it to me. It was his own private affair, and I, as his friend, never referred to so painful a subject.
It is strange how one takes to some men. All my friends looked askance when I walked about Florence with Charlie Whitaker. Some insinuated that his past was a very black one, and others openly declared that he never dare face the Consul, or go back to England, because a warrant was out for him. Truly he was under a cloud, poor fellow, and I often felt sorry for all the open snubs he received.
As we sat that night smoking outside on the pavement, with the merry, careless populace idling to and fro, he seemed a trifle more pensive than usual, and I inquired the reason.
“Nothing, Ewart,” he declared, with a faint smile; “nothing very particular. Thoughts—only thoughts of—”
“Of what?”
“Of town—of our dear old London that I suppose I shall never see again,” and his mouth hardened. “Do you remember Pall Mall, the Park, the Devonshire—and Vivi?”
I nodded, and pulled at my cheap cigar.
Vivi! Did I remember her? Why, I had often driven the Honourable Victoria Violet Finlay, the girl—for she was only eighteen—who had once flirted with me when I was in her father’s service. Why, I wondered, did he mention her? Could he know the truth? Could he know the galling bitterness of my own heart? I think not. Through the many months I had been the Count’s chauffeur I had held my secret, though my heart was full of bitterness.
Mention of her name recalled, under that white Italian moonlight, a vision of her—the tall, slim, graceful girlish figure, the oval delicate face with clear blue eyes, and the wealth of red-gold hair beneath her motor-cap. She rose before me with that sad, bitter smile of farewell that she had given me when, as she was seated beside me in the car, on our way from Guildford to London, I bent over her small white hand for the last time.
Whew! Why are we men given memories? Half one’s life seems to be made up of vain regrets. Since that day I had, it was true, never ceased to think of her, yet I had lived a lonely, melancholy life, even though it were fraught with such constant excitement.
“You knew Vivi, of course?” I remarked, after a long silence, looking my fellow-exile straight in the face.
“I met her once or twice at the house of my aunt, Lady Ailesworth,” was his reply. “I wonder where she is now? There was some talk of her marrying Baron de Boek, the Belgian banker. Did you hear it?”
I nodded. The rumour was, alas! too well known to me. How is it that the memory of one woman clings to a man above all others? Why does one woman’s face haunt every man, whatever age he may be, or whether he be honest or a thief?
Whitaker was watching my countenance so intently that I was filled with surprise. I had never told a soul of my flirtation.
Three youths passed along the pavement playing upon their mandolines an air from the latest opera at the Arena, laughing at two hatless girls of the people who were drinking coffee at the table next to us, and next moment the al fresco orchestra in the balcony above struck up a waltz.
“Faugh!” cried my companion, starting up. “Let’s go. This music is intolerable! Let’s walk along the Lung Arno, by the river.”
I rose, and together we strolled to the river-side along that embankment, the favourite walk of Dante and of Petrarch, of Raphael and of Michelangelo. All was silent, for the great ponderous palaces lining the river were closed till winter, and there were no shops or cafés.
For a long time we walked in the brilliant night without uttering a word. At last he said in a strange, hard voice—
“I’ve received news to-day which every other man beside myself would regard as the very worst information possible, and yet, to me, it is the most welcome.”
“What’s that?” I inquired.
“I saw two doctors, Pellegrini and Gori, to-day, and both have said the same thing—I am dying. In a few weeks I shall have ceased to trouble anybody.”
“Dying!” I gasped, halting and staring at him. “Why, my dear fellow, you are the very picture of health.”
“I know,” he smiled. “But I have for a long time suspected myself doomed. I have a complaint that is incurable. Therefore I wonder if you would do me one small favour. Will you keep this letter until I am dead, and afterwards open it and act upon its instructions? They may seem strange to you, but you will ascertain the truth. When you do know the truth, recollect that though dead I beg of you one thing—your forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness? For what? I don’t understand you.”
“No,” he said bitterly. “Of course you don’t. And I have no wish that you should—until after I am dead. You are my only friend, and yet I have to ask you to forgive. Here is the letter,” he added, drawing an envelope from his pocket and handing it to me. “Take it to-night, for I never know if I may live to see another day.”
I took it, and noting its big black seal, placed it carefully in my inner pocket. Two loafers were standing in the shadow in front of us, and their presence reminded me that that end of the Lung Arno is not very safe at night. Therefore we turned, slowly retracing our steps back to the quaint old bridge with the houses upon it—the Ponte Vecchio.
Just before we reached it my companion stopped, and grasping my hand suddenly, said in a choking voice—
“You have been my only friend since my downfall, Ewart. Without you, I should have starved. These very clothes I wear were bought with money you have so generously given me. I can never thank you sufficiently. You have prolonged a useless and broken life, but it will soon be at an end, and I shall no longer be a burden to you.”
“A burden? What rubbish! You’re not yourself to-night, Whitaker. Cheer up, for Heaven’s sake.”
“Can a condemned man laugh? Well,” he added, with a mocking smile, “I’ll try. Come, old fellow, let’s go back to the Gambrinus and have another bock—before we part. I’ve got a franc—one of yours—so I’ll stand it!”
And we walked on to the big Piazza, with its music and its garish cafés, the customers of which overflowed into the square, where they sat in great groups.
Italy is indeed a complex country, and contains more of the flotsam and jetsam of English derelicts than any other country in all Europe. Every Italian town has its own coterie of broken-down Englishmen and Englishwomen, the first-mentioned mostly sharks, and the latter mostly drunkards. Truly the shifty existence led by these exiles presents a strange phrase of life, so essentially cosmopolitan and yet so essentially tragic.
It was half-past one when I left my friend to walk home out of the town through the narrow Via Romana. The ill-lit neighbourhood through which I had to pass was somewhat unsafe late at night, but being well known in Florence I never feared, and was walking briskly, full of thought of my own love-romance, when, of a sudden, two rough-looking men coming out of a side street collided with me, apologised, and went off hurriedly.
At first I felt bewildered, so sudden was the encounter. My thoughts had been very far away from that dark ancient street. But next moment I felt in my pocket. My wallet—in which one carries the paper currency of Italy—was gone, and with it Whitaker’s precious letter!
Those men had evidently watched me take out my wallet when on the Lung Arno, and waited for me as I walked home.
I turned to look after them, but they had already disappeared into that maze of crooked, squalid streets around the Pitti. Fortunately, there was not more than a sovereign in it. I was filled with regret, however, on account of my friend’s letter. He had trusted me with some secret. I had accepted the confidence he reposed in me, and yet, by my carelessness, the secret, whatever it was, had passed into other hands. Should I tell him? I hesitated. What would you have done in such circumstances?
Well, I decided to say nothing. If the thief knew me, as he most probably did, he might return the letter anonymously when he discovered that it was of no value. And that there was anything of value within was entirely out of the question.
So months went by. I was ordered to take the car back to England, and then went to Germany and to France. Only once Whitaker wrote to me. Florence, he declared, was very dull now I had left.
A coup had been made in Biarritz,—a little matter of a few sparklers,—and Bindo and I found ourselves living, early in January, at the Villa Igiea, at Palermo.
As I sat alone, smoking and gazing out upon the blue bay, with the distant mountains purple in the calm sundown, the quick frou-frou of silken skirts passed close by me, and a tall, slender girl, very elegantly dressed, went forth alone into the beautiful gardens that slope down to the sea. I noted her neat figure, her gait, the red-gold tint of her hair, and the peculiar manner in which she carried her left hand when walking.
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 35