Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

/> "It is only practice, with a little patience," she said, simply, as she opened her flask of white-rose scent and handed it up to her mother.

Necessarily, it was rail all the way for these two travellers. Not for them the joyous assembling on the Mediterranean shore, where Nice lies basking in the sun like a pink surf thrown up by the waves. Not for them the packing of the great carriage, and the swinging away of the four horses with their jingling bells, and the slow climbing of the Cornice, the road twisting up the face of the gray mountains, through perpetual lemon-groves, with far below the ribbed blue sea. Not for them the leisurely trotting all day long through the luxuriant beauty of the Riviera--the sun hot on the ruddy cliffs of granite, and on the terraces of figs and vines and spreading palms; nor the rattling through the narrow streets of the old walled towns, with the scarlet-capped men and swarthy-visaged women shrinking into the door-ways as the horses clatter by; nor the quiet evenings in the hotel garden, with the moon rising over the murmuring sea, and the air sweet with the perfumes of the south. No. They climbed a mountain, it is true, but it was behind an engine; they beheld the Mont Cenis snows, but it was from the window of a railway-carriage. Then they passed through the black, resounding tunnel, with, after a time, its sudden glares of light; finally the world seemed to open around them; they looked down upon Italy.

"Many a one has died for you, and been glad," said the girl, almost to herself, as she gazed abroad on the great valleys, with here and there a peak crowned with a castle or a convent, with the vine-terraced hills showing now and again a few white dots of houses, and beyond and above all these the far blue mountains, with their sharp line of snow.

Then they descended, and passed through the luxuriant yellow plains--the sunset blazing on the rows of willows and on the square farm-houses with their gaudy picture over the arched gateway; while always in the background rose the dark masses of the mountains, solemn and distant, beyond the golden glow of the fields. They reached Turin at dusk, both of them very tired.

So far scarcely anything had been said about the object of their journey, though they could have talked in safety even in railway-carriages, as they spoke to each other in Magyar. But Natalie refused to listen to any dissuading counsel; when her mother began, she would say, "Dear little mother, will you have some white rose for your forehead and your fingers?"

From Turin they had to start again early in the morning. They had by this time grown quite accustomed to the plod, plodding of the train; it seemed almost one of the normal and necessary conditions of life. They went down by Genoa, Spezia, Pisa, Sienna, and Rome, making the shortest possible pauses.

One night the windows of a sitting-room in a hotel at the western end of Naples were opened, and a young girl stepped out on to the high balcony, a light shawl thrown over her head and shoulders. It was a beautiful night; the air sweet and still; the moonlight shining over the scarcely stirring waters of the bay. Before her rose the vast bulk of the Castello dell' Ovo, a huge mass of black shadow against the silvery sea and the lambent sky: then far away throbbed the dull orange lights of the city; and beyond these, again, Vesuvius towered into the clear darkness, with a line of sharp, intense crimson marking its summit. Through the perfect silence she could hear the sound of the oars of a boat, itself unseen; and over the whispering waters came some faint and distant refrain, "Addio! addio!" At length even these sounds ceased, and she was alone in the still, murmuring beautiful night.

She looked across to the great city. Who were her unknown friends there? What mighty power was she about to invoke on the morrow? There was no need for her to consult the card that Calabressa had given her; again and again, in the night-time, when her mother lay asleep, she had studied it, and wondered whether it would prove the talisman the giver had called it. She looked at this great city beside the sea, and only knew that it was beautiful in the moonlight; she had no fear of anything that it contained. And then she thought of another city, far away in the colder north, and she wondered if a certain window were open there, overlooking the river and the gas-lamp and the bridges, and whether there was one there thinking of her. Could not the night-wind carry the speech and desire of her heart?--"Good-night, good-night.... Love knows no fear.... Not yet is our life forever broken for us."


CHAPTER XLVI.


THE BEECHES.

On the same night Lord Evelyn was in Brand's rooms, arguing, expostulating, entreating, all to no purpose. He was astounded at the calmness with which this man appeared to accept the terrible task imposed on him, and at the stoical indifference with which he looked forward to the almost certain sacrifice of his own life.

"You have become a fanatic of fanatics!" he exclaimed, indignantly.

George Brand was staring out of the windows into the dark night, somewhat absently.

"I suppose," he answered, "all the great things that have been done in the world have been founded in fanaticism. All that I can hope for now is that this particular act of the Council may have the good effect they hope from it. They ought to know. They see the sort of people with whom they have to deal. I should have thought, with Lind, that it was unwise--that it would shock, or even terrify; but my opinion is neither here nor there. Further talking is of no use, Evelyn; the thing is settled; what I have to consider now, as regards myself, is how I can best benefit a few people whom I am interested in, and you can help me in that."

"But I appeal to yourself--to your conscience!" Lord Evelyn cried, almost in despair. "You cannot shift the responsibility to them. You are answerable for your own actions. I say you are sacrificing your conscience to your pride. You are saying to yourself, 'Do these foreigners think that I am afraid?'"

"I am not thinking of myself at all," said Brand, simply; "that is all over. When I swore to give myself to this Society--to obey the commands of the Council--then my responsibility ceased. What I have to do is to be faithful to my oath, and to the promise I have made." Almost unconsciously he glanced at the ring that Natalie had given him. "You would not have me skulk back like a coward? You would not have me 'play and not pay?' What I have undertaken to do I will do."

Presently he added,

"There is something you could do, Evelyn. Don't let us talk further of myself: I said before, if a single man drops out of the ranks, what matter?--the army marches on. And what has been concerning me of late is the effect that this act of the Council may have on our thousands of friends throughout this country. Now, Evelyn, when--when the affair comes off, I think you would do a great deal of good by pointing out in the papers what a scoundrel this man Zaccatelli was; how he had merited his punishment, and how it might seem justifiable to the people over there that one should take the law into one's own hands in such an exceptional case. You might do that, Evelyn, for the sake of the Society. The people over here don't know what a ruffian he is, and how he is beyond the ordinary reach of the law, or how the poor people have groaned under his iniquities. Don't seek to justify me; I shall be beyond the reach of excuse or execration by that time; but you might break the shock, don't you see?--you might explain a little--you might intimate to our friends who have joined us here that they had not joined any kind of Camorra association. That troubles me more than anything. I confess to you that I have got quite reconciled to the affair, as far as any sacrifice on my own part is concerned. That bitterness is over; I can even think of Natalie."

The last words were spoken slowly, and in a low voice; his eyes were fixed on the night-world outside. What could his friend say? They talked late into the night; but all his remonstrances and prayers were of no avail as against this clear resolve.

"What is the use of discussion?" was the placid answer. "What would you have me do?--break my oaths--put aside my sacred promise made to Natalie, and give up the Society altogether? My good fellow, let us talk of something less impossible."

And indeed, though he deprecated discussion on this point, he was anxious to talk. The fact was that of late he had come to fear sleep, as the look of his eyes testified. In the daytime, or as long as he could sit up with a companion, he could force himself to think only of the immediate and practical demands of the hour; vain regrets over what might have been--and even occasional uneasy searchings of conscience--he could by an effort of will ignore. He had accepted his fate; he had schooled himself to look forward to it without fear; henceforth there was to be no indecision, no murmur of complaint. But in the night-time--in dreams--the natural craving for life asserted itself; it seemed so sad to bid good-bye forever to those whom he had known and loved; and mostly always it was Natalie herself who stood there, regarding him with streaming eyes, and wringing her hands, and sobbing to him farewell. The morning light, or the first calls in the thoroughfare below, or the shrieking of some railway-whistle on Hungerford Bridge brought an inexpressible relief by banishing these agonizing visions. No matter how soon Waters was astir, he found his master up before him--dressed, and walking up and down the room, or reading some evening newspaper of the previous day. Sometimes Brand occupied himself in getting ready his own breakfast, but he had to explain to Waters that this was not meant as a rebuke--it was merely that, being awake early, he wished for some occupation.

Early on the morning after this last despairing protest on the part of Lord Evelyn, Brand drove up to Paddington Station, on his way to pay a hurried visit to his Buckinghamshire home. Nearly all his affairs had been settled in town; there remained some arrangements to be made in the country. Lord Evelyn was to have joined him in this excursion, but at the last moment had not put in an appearance; so Brand jumped in just as the train was starting, and found himself alone in the carriage.

The bundle of newspapers he had with him did not seem to interest him much. He was more than ever puzzled to account for the continued silence of Natalie. Each morning he had been confidently expecting to hear from her--to have some explanation of her sudden departure--but as the days went by, and no message of any sort arrived, his wonder became merged in anxiety. It seemed so strange that she should thus absent herself, when she had been counting on each day on which she might see him as if it were some gracious gift from Heaven.

All that he was certain of in the matter was that