Eleanor by Mrs. Humphry Ward (short novels to read txt) 📖

upon to face the judgment in Lucy Foster's face on what he had done.

* * * * *

The middle of July was past. The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel had come and gone, bringing processions and music, with a Madonna under a gold baldacchino, to glorify the little deserted chapel on the height.

Eleanor had watched the crowds and banners, the red-robed Compagni di Gesu, the white priests, and veiled girls, with a cold averted eye. Lucy looked back with a pang to Marinata, and to the indulgent pleasure that Eleanor had once taken in all the many-coloured show of Catholicism. Now she was always weary, and often fretful. It struck Lucy too that she was more restless than ever. She seemed to take no notice of the present--to be always living in the future--expecting, listening, waiting. The gestures and sudden looks that expressed this attitude of mind were often of the weirdest effect. Lucy could have thought her haunted by some unseen presence. Physically she was not, perhaps, substantially worse. But her state was more appealing, and the girl's mind towards her more pitiful day by day.

One thing, however, she was determined on. They would not spend August at Torre Amiata. It would need stubbornness with Eleanor to bring her to the point of change. But stubbornness there should be.

One morning, a day or two after the festa, Lucy left Eleanor on the _loggia_, while she herself ran out for a turn before their midday meal. There had been fierce rain in the morning, and the sky was still thick with thunder clouds promising more.

She escaped into a washed and cooled world. But the thirsty earth had drunk the rain at a gulp. The hill which had been running with water was almost dry, the woods had ceased to patter; on all sides could be felt the fresh restoring impulse of the storm. Nature seemed to be breathing from a deeper chest--shaking her free locks in a wilder, keener air--to a long-silent music from the quickened river below.

Lucy almost ran down the hill, so great was the physical relief of the rain and the cloudy morning. She needed it. Her spirits, too, had been uneven, her cheek paler of late.

She wore a blue cotton dress, fitting simply and closely to the young rounded form. Round her shapely throat and the lace collar that showed Eleanor's fancy and seemed to herself a little too elaborate for the morning, she wore a child's coral necklace--a gleam of red between the abundant black of her hair and the soft blue of her dress. Her hat, a large Leghorn, with a rose in it, framed the sweet gravity of her face. She was more beautiful than when she had said good-bye to Uncle Ben on the Boston platform. But it was a beauty that for his adoring old heart would have given new meaning to 'that sad word, Joy.'

She turned into the Sassetto and pushed upwards through its tumbled rocks and trees to the seat commanding the river and the mountains.

As she approached it, she was thinking of Eleanor and the future, and her eyes were absently bent on the ground.

But a scent familiar and yet strange distracted her. Suddenly, on the path in front of the seat, she saw a still burning cigarette, and on the seat a book lying.

She stopped short; then sank upon the seat, her eyes fixed upon the book.

It was a yellow-bound French novel, and on the outside was written in a hand she knew, a name that startled every pulse in her young body.

_His_ book? And that cigarette? Father Benecke neither smoked nor did he read French novels.

Beyond the seat the path branched, upwards to the Palazzo, and downwards to the river. She rose and looked eagerly over its steep edge into the medley of rock and tree below. She saw nothing, but it seemed to her that in the distance she heard voices talking--receding.

They had left the seat only just in time to escape her. Mr. Manisty had forgotten his book! Careless and hasty--how well she knew the trait! But he would miss it--he would come back.

She stood up and tried to collect her thoughts. If he was here, he was with Father Benecke. So the priest had betrayed the secret he had promised Mrs. Burgoyne to keep?

No, no!--that was impossible! It was chance--unkind, unfriendly chance.

And yet?--as she bit her lip in fear or bewilderment, her heart was rising like the Paglia after the storm--swelling, thundering within her.

'What shall I--what shall I do?' she cried under her breath, pressing her hands to her eyes.

Then she turned and walked swiftly homewards. Eleanor must not know--must not see him. The girl was seized with panic terror at the thought of what might be the effect of any sudden shock upon Mrs. Burgoyne.

Halfway up the hill, she stopped involuntarily, wringing her hands in front of her. It was the thought of Manisty not half a mile away, of his warm, living self so close to her that had swept upon her, like a tempest wind on a young oak.

'Oh! I mustn't--_mustn't_--be glad!'--she cried, gulping down a sob, hating, despising herself.

Then she hurried on. With every step, she grew more angry with Father Benecke. At best, he must have been careless, inconsiderate. A man of true delicacy would have done more than keep his promise, would have actively protected him.

That he had kept the letter of his promise was almost proved by the fact that Mr. Manisty had not yet descended upon the convent. For what could it mean--his lingering in Italy--but a search, a pursuit? Her cheek flamed guiltily over the certainty thus borne in upon her. But if so, what could hold back his impetuous will--but ignorance? He could not know they were there. That was clear.

So there was time--a chance. Perhaps Father Benecke was taken by surprise too--puzzled to know what to do with him? Should she write to the priest; or simply keep Eleanor indoors and watch?

At thought of her, the girl lashed herself into an indignation, an anguish that sustained her. After devotion so boundless, service so measureless--so lightly, meagrely repaid--were Mrs. Burgoyne's peace and health to be again in peril at her cousin's hands?

* * * * *

Luckily Eleanor showed that day no wish to move from her sofa. The storm had shaken her, given her a headache, and she was inclined to shiver in the cooler air.

After luncheon Lucy coaxed her to stay in one of the inner rooms, where there was a fire-place; out of sight and sound of the road. Marie made a fire on the disused hearth of what had once been an infirmary cell. The logs crackled merrily; and presently the rain streamed down again across the open window.

Lucy sat sewing and reading through the afternoon in a secret anguish of listening. Every sound in the corridor, every sound from downstairs, excited the tumult in the blood. 'What is the matter with you?' Eleanor would say, reaching out first to pinch, then to kiss the girl's cheek. 'It is all very well that thunder should set a poor wretch like me on edge--but you! Anyway it has given you back your colour. You look superbly well this afternoon.'

And then she would fall to gazing at the girl under her eyebrows with that little trick of the bitten lip, and that piteous silent look, that Lucy could hardly bear.

The rain fell fast and furious. They dined by the fire, and the night fell.

'Clearing--at last,' said Eleanor, as they pushed back their little table, and she stood by the open window, while Cecco was taking away the meal; 'but too late and too wet for me.'

An hour later indeed the storm had rolled away, and a bright and rather cold starlight shone above the woods.

'Now I understand Aunt Pattie's tales of fires at Sorrento in August,' said Eleanor, crouching over the hearth. 'This blazing Italy can touch you when she likes with the chilliest fingers. Poor peasants!--are their hearts lighter to-night? The rain was fierce, but mercifully there was no hail. Down below they say the harvest is over. Here they begin next week. The storm has been rude--but not ruinous. Last year the hail-storms in September stripped the grape; destroyed half their receipts--and pinched their whole winter. They will think it all comes of their litanies and banners the other day. If the vintage goes well too, perhaps they will give the Madonna a new frock. How simple!--how satisfying!'

She hung over the blaze, with her little pensive smile, cheered physically by the warmth, more ready to talk, more at ease than she had been for days. Lucy looked at her with a fast beating heart. How fragile she was, how lovely still, in the half light!

Suddenly Eleanor turned to her, and held out her arms. Lucy knelt down beside her, trembling lest any look or word should betray the secret in her heart. But Eleanor drew the girl to her, resting her cheek tenderly on the brown head.

'Do you miss your mother very much?' she said softly, turning her lips to kiss the girl's hair. 'I know you do. I see it in you, often.'

Lucy's eyes filled with tears. She pressed Eleanor's hand without speaking. They clung together in silence each mind full of thoughts unknown to the other. But Eleanor's features relaxed; for a little while she rested, body and mind. And as Lucy lingered in the clasp thrown round her, she seemed for the first time since the old days at the villa to be the cherished, and not the cherisher.

* * * * *

Eleanor went early to bed, and then Lucy took a warm shawl and paced up and down the _loggia_ in a torment of indecision. Presently she was attracted by the little wooden stair which led down from the _loggia_ to what had once been the small walled garden of the convent, where the monks of this austere order had taken their exercise in sickness, or rested in the sun, when extreme old age debarred them from the field labour of their comrades.

The garden was now a desolation, save for a tangle of oleanders and myrtle in its midst. But the high walls were still intact, and an old wooden door on the side nearest to the forest. Beneath the garden was a triangular piece of open grass land sloping down towards the entrance of the Sassetto and bounded on one side by the road.

Lucy wandered up and down, in a wild trance of feeling. Half a mile away was he sitting with Father Benecke?--winning perhaps their poor secret from the priest's incautious lips'? With what eagle-quickness could he pounce on a sign, an indication! And then the flash of those triumphant eyes, and the onslaught of his will on theirs!

Hark! She caught her breath.

Voices! Two men were descending