And Pennell, on the other hand, though he had been much sought after and flattered by the fair sex for the sake of the fame he had acquired and the money he made, had never lost his heart to any woman as he had done to his little unknown wife. He had never met anyone like Hally before. She combined the intelligence of the Englishwoman with the espièglerie of the French—the devotion of the Creole with the fiery passion of the Spanish or Italian. He could conceive her quite capable of dying silently and uncomplainingly for him, or anyone she loved; or on the other hand stabbing her lover without remorse if roused by jealousy or insult.
He was hourly discovering new traits in her character which delighted him because they were so utterly unlike any possessed by the women of the world with whom he had hitherto associated. He felt as though he had captured some beautiful wild creature and was taming it for his own pleasure.
Harriet would sit for hours at a time in profound silence, contemplating his features or watching his actions—crouched on the floor at his feet until he was fain to lay down his book or writing and take to fondling her instead. She was an ever constant joy to him; he felt it would be impossible to do anything to displease her so long as he loved her—that like the patient Griselda[131] she would submit to any injustice and meekly call it justice if from his hand. And yet he knew all the while that the savage in her was not tamed—that at any moment, like the domesticated lion or tiger, her nature might assert itself and become furious, wild and intractable. It was the very uncertainty that pleased him; men love the women of whom they are not quite certain all the more. From Nice they wandered to Mentone but the proximity of the Monte Carlo tables had no charm for Anthony Pennell. He was not a speculating man: his brain was filled with better things and he only visited such places for the sake of reproduction. Although the autumn was now far advanced, the air of Mentone was too enervating to suit either of them, and Pennell proposed that they should move on to Italy.
“I must shew you Venice and Rome before we return home, Hally,” he said, “and when I come to think of it, why should we return to England at all just yet? Why not winter in Rome? Richards is always advising me to take a good, long holiday. He says I overwork my brain and it reacts upon my body—what better opportunity could we find to adopt his advice? Hitherto I have pooh-poohed the idea! Wandering over a foreign country in solitary grandeur held no charms for me but with you, my darling, to double the pleasure of every thing, any place assumes the appearance of Paradise! What do you say, little wife? Shall we set up our tent South until the spring?”
“Don’t you feel well, Tony?” asked Harriet, anxiously.
“Never better in my life, dear! I am afraid you will not make an interesting invalid out of me. I am as fit as a fiddle. But I fancy my next novel will deal with Italy and I should like to make a few notes of the spots I may require to introduce. It is nothing to take me away from you, darling. We will inspect the old places together, and your quick eye and clear brain shall help me in my researches. Is it a settled thing, Hally?”
“O! yes, darling!” she replied, “anywhere with you! The only place I shall ever object to will be the one where I cannot go with you.”
“That place does not exist on this earth, Hally,” said Pennell, “but if you are willing we may as well start to-morrow, for if we leave it too late we shall find all the best winter quarters pre-engaged.”
He left the room, as she thought rather hurriedly, but as he gained the hotel corridor he slightly staggered and leaned against the wall. He had told his wife that he was quite well, but he knew it was not the truth. He had felt weak and enervated ever since coming to Mentone, but he ascribed it to the soft mild atmosphere.
“Confound this dizziness!” he said inwardly, as the corridor swam before his eyes, “I think my liver must be out of order, and yet I have been taking plenty of exercise. It must be this mild moist air. Heat never did agree with me. I shall be glad to get on. We shall find Florence cold by comparison.”
He descended to the bureau and announced his intention of giving up his rooms on the morrow, and then ordered a carriage and returned to take Hally out for a drive.
In Florence they procured rooms in a grand old palazzo, furnished with rococo chairs and tables placed upon marble floors. Harriet was charmed and astonished by the ease with which they got everything en route, as though they possessed Aladin’s lamp, she told Pennell, and had but to wish to obtain.
“Ah! Hally!” said her husband, “we have some thing better than the genie’s lamp—we have money! That is the true magician in this century. I am very thankful that you have a fortune of your own, my dearest, because I know that whatever happens, my girl will be able to hold her own with the world!”
Harriet grew pale.
“What could happen?” she stammered.
“My silly little goose, are we immortal?” he replied, “I make a first-rate income, my dear, but have not laid by enough as yet to leave you more than comfortably off, but with your own money.”
“Don’t speak of it, pray don’t speak of it!” she exclaimed, with ashen lips, and noting her distress, Pennell changed the subject.
“You are a lucky little woman,” he continued, “I wonder what some people would give to possess your income—poor Margaret Pullen for instance.”
“Why Mrs. Pullen in particular, Tony? Are they poor?”
“Not whilst Colonel Pullen is on active service, but he has nothing but his pay to depend upon and whilst he can work, he must. Which means a residence in India and perhaps separation from his wife and children—if he should lose his health, a compulsory retirement; and if he keeps it, toiling out there till old age and then coming home to spin out the remainder of his life on an inadequate pension. A man who accepts service in India should make up his mind to live and die in the country but so many accidents may prevent it. And at the best it means banishment from England and all one’s friends and relations. Poor Margaret feels that severely I am sure!”
“Has Mrs. Pullen many relations then?”
“She has a mother still living and several brothers and sisters besides her husband’s family. What a sweet gentle woman she is! She was kind to you, Hally, was she not, whilst you were abroad?”
By mutual agreement they never spoke of Heyst, or the Red House, or anything which was associated with what Pennell called his wife’s infatuation regarding herself.
“Yes! she was very kind—at first,” replied Harriet, “until—until—it all happened, and they went to England. O! do not let us talk of it!” she broke off suddenly.
“No! we will not! Have you unpacked your mandoline yet, Hally? Fetch it, dear, and let me hear your lovely voice again! I shall get you to sing to me when I am in the vein for composing! You would bring me all sorts of beautiful ideas and phantasies!”
“Should I? should I?” exclaimed the girl joyfully. “O! how lovely! I should do a part of your work then, shouldn’t I, Tony?—I should inspire you! Why, I would sing day and night for that!”
“No! no! my bird, I would not let you tire yourself! A few notes now and then—they will help me more than enough. I must draw from you for my next heroine, Hally! I could not have a fairer model!”
“O! Tony!”
She rushed to him in the extremity of her delight and hid her face upon his breast.
“I am not good enough, not pretty enough! Your heroines should be perfect!”
“I don’t think so! I prefer them to be of flesh and blood, like you!”
He stooped his head and kissed her passionately. “Hally! Hally!” he whispered, “you draw my very life away!”
The girl got up suddenly, almost roughly, and walked into the next room to fetch her mandoline.
“No! no!” she cried to herself with a cold fear, “not that, my God, not that!”
But when she returned with the instrument she did not revert to the subject, but played and sang as usual to her husband’s admiration and delight.
They did Floren
ce very thoroughly during the first week of their stay there, and were both completely tired.
“I must really stay at home to-morrow,” cried Hally one afternoon on returning to dinner, “Tony, I am regularly fagged out! I feel as if I had a corn upon every toe!”
“So do I,” replied her husband, “and I cannot have my darling knocked-up by fatigue! We will be lazy to-morrow, Hally, and lie on two sofas and read our books all day! I have been thinking for the last few days that we have been going a little too fast! Let me see child!—how long have we been married?”
“Six weeks to-morrow,” she answered glibly.
“Bless my soul! we are quite an old married couple, a species of Darby and Joan! And have you been happy, Hally?”
The tears of excitement rushed into her dark eyes.
“Happy! That is no word for what I have been, Tony, I have been in Heaven—in Heaven all the while!”
“And so have I,” rejoined her husband.
“I met some nuns whilst I was out this morning,” continued Hally, “the sisters of the Annunciation, and they stopped and spoke to me, and were so pleased to hear that I had been brought up in a convent. ‘And have you no vocation, my child?’ asked one of them. ‘Yes! Sister,’ I replied, ‘I have—a big, strong, handsome vocation called my husband.’ They looked quite shocked, poor dears, at first, but I gave them a subscription for their orphan schools—one hundred francs—and they were so pleased. They said if I was sick whilst in Florence I must send for one of them and she would come and nurse me! I gave it as a thanksgiving, Tony—a thanksgiving offering because I am so very happy. I am not a good woman like Margaret Pullen, I know that, but I love you—I love you!”
“Who said that you were not a good woman?” asked Pennell, as he drew her fondly to his side, and kissed away the tears that hung on her dark lashes.
“O! I know I am not. Besides, you once said that Margaret Pullen was the best woman you had ever known.”
“I think she is very sweet and unselfish,” replied Pennell musingly, “she felt the loss of her infant terribly, Doctor Phillips told me, but the way in which she struggled to subdue her grief in order not to distress others was wonderful! Poor Margaret! how she mourns little Ethel to this day.”
“Don’t! don’t!” cried Harriet in a stifled voice, “I cannot bear to think of it!”
“My darling, it had nothing to do with you! I have told you so a thousand times!”
“Yes! yes! I know you have—but I loved the little darling! It is dreadful to me to think that she is mouldering in the grave!”
“Come, child, you will be hysterical if you indulge in any more reminiscences! Suppose we go for a stroll through the Ghetto or some other antiquated part of Florence. Or shall we take a drive into the country? I am at your command, Madam!”
“A drive, darling, then—a drive!” whispered his wife, as she left him to get ready for the excursion.
It was three hours before they returned to their rooms in the old palazzo. Harriet was dull and somewhat silent and Anthony confessed to a headache.
“I am not quite sure now,” he said, as they were dining, “whether a trip to Australia or America would not do us both more good than lingering about these mild, warm places. I think our constitutions both require bracing rather than coddling. Australia is a grand young country! I have often contemplated paying her a visit. What would you say to it, Hally?”
“I should enjoy it as much as yourself, Tony! You so often have a headache now! I think the drainage of these southern towns must be defective!”
“O! shocking! They are famous for typhoid and malarial fevers. They are not drained at all!”
“Don’t let us stay here long then! What should I do if you were to fall ill?”
“You are far more liable to fall sick of the two, my darling,” returned her husband. “I do not think your beautiful little body has much strength to sustain it. And then what should I do?”
“Ah! neither of us could do without the other, Tony!”
“Of course we couldn’t, and so we will provide against such a contingency by moving on before our systems get saturated with miasma and mistral. Will you sing to me to-night, Hally?”
“Not unless you very much wish it! I am a little tired. I feel as if I couldn’t throw any expression into my songs to-night!”
“Then come here and sit down on the sofa beside me, and let us talk!”
She did as he desired but Pennell was too sleepy to talk. In five minutes he had fallen fast asleep and it was with difficulty she could persuade him to abandon the couch and drag his weary limbs up to bed, where he threw himself down in a profound slumber. Harriet was also tired. Her husband was breathing heavily as she slipped into her place beside him. His arm was thrown out over her pillow, as though he feared she might go to sleep without remembering to wish him good-night! She bent over him and kissed him passionately on the lips.
“Good-night, my beloved,” she whispered, “sleep well and wake in happiness!”
She kissed the big hand too that lay upon her pillow and composed herself to sleep while it still encircled her.
The dawn is early in Florence but it had broken for some time before she roused herself again. The sun was streaming brightly into the long, narrow, uncurtained windows and everything it lighted on was touched with a molten glory. Harriet started up in bed. Her husband’s arm was still beneath her body.
“O! my poor darling!” she exclaimed, as though the fault were her own, “how cramped he must be! How soundly we must have slept not to have once moved through the night!”
She raised Tony’s arm and commenced to chafe it. How strangely heavy and cold it felt. Why! he was cold all over! She drew up the bedclothes and tucked them in around his chin. Then, for the first time, she looked at his face. His eyes were open.
“Tony, Tony!” she exclaimed, “are you making fun of me? Have you been awake all the time?”
She bent over his face laughingly and pressed a kiss upon his cheek.
How stiff it felt! My God! what was the matter? Could he have fainted? She leapt from the bed, and running to her husband’s side, pulled down the bedclothes again and placed her hand upon his heart. The body was cold—cold and still all over! His eyes were glazed and dull. His mouth was slightly open. In one awful moment she knew the truth. Tony was—dead!
She stood for some moments—some hours—some months—she could not have reckoned the time, silent and motionless, trying to realise what had occurred. Then—as it came upon her, like a resistless flood which she could not stem nor escape, Harriet gave one fearful shriek which brought the servants hurrying upstairs to know what could be the matter.
“I have killed my husband—I have killed him—it was I myself who did it!” was all that she would say.
Of course they did not believe her. They accepted the unmeaning words as part of their mistress’s frenzy at her sudden and unexpected loss. They saw what had happened, and they ran breathlessly for a doctor who confirmed their worst fears—the Signor was dead!
The old palazzo became like a disturbed ant-hill. The servants ran hither and thither, unknowing how to act, whilst the mistress sat by the bedside with staring, tearless eyes, holding the hand of her dead husband. But there were a dozen things to be done—half a hundred orders to be issued. Death in Florence is quickly followed by burial. The law does not permit a mourner to lament his Dead for more than four-and-twenty hours.
But the signora would give no orders for the funeral nor answer any questions put to her! She had no friends in Florence—for ought they knew, she had no money—what were they to do? At last one of them thought of the neighbouring Convent of the Annunciation and ran to implore one of the good sisters to come to their mistress in her extremity.
Shortly afterwards, Sister Angelica entered the bedroom where Harriet sat murmuring at intervals, “It is I who have killed him,” and attempted to administer comfort to the young mourner. But her words and prayers had no eff
ect upon Harriet. Her brain could hold but one idea—she had killed Tony! Doctor Phillips was right—it was she who had killed Margaret Pullen’s baby and Bobby Bates, and to look further back, little Caroline, and now—now her Tony! the light of her life, the passion of her being, the essence of all her joy—her hope for this world and the next. She had killed him—she, who worshipped him, whose pride was bound up in him, who was to have helped him and comforted him and waited on him all his life—she had killed him!
Her dry lips refused to say the words distinctly, but they kept revolving in her brain until they dazed and wearied her. The little sister stood by her and held her hand as the professional assistants entered the death chamber and arranged and straightened the body for the grave, finally placing it in a coffin and carrying it away to a mortuary where it would have to remain until buried on the morrow, but Harriet made no resistance to the ceremony and no sign. She did not even say “Good-bye” as Tony was carried from her sight for ever! Sister Angelica talked to her of the glorious Heaven where they must hope that her dear husband would be translated, of the peace and happiness he would enjoy, of the reunion which awaited them when her term of life was also past.
She pressed her to make the Convent her refuge until the first agony of her loss was overcome—reminded her of the peace and rest she would encounter within the cloisters, and how the whole fraternity would unite in praying for the soul of her beloved that he might speedily obtain the remission of his sins and an entrance into the Beatific Presence.
Harriet listened dully and at last in order to get rid of her well-intentioned but rather wearisome consoler, she promised to do all that she wished. Let the sister return to the Convent for the present, and on the morrow if she would come for her at the same time she might take her back with her. She wanted rest and peace—she would be thankful for them, poor Harriet said—only-to-night, this one night more, she wished to be alone. So the good little sister went away rejoicing that she had succeeded in her errand of mercy, and looking forward to bearing the poor young widow to the Convent on the morrow, there to learn the true secret of earthly happiness.
The Blood of the Vampire Page 30
