The Day of Temptation

“Yes,” Nenci said. “I had to clear out of Hammersmith suddenly and come down here, because I thought the Embassy knew too much. She only discovered me a fortnight ago.”

“And she is actually living here?”

“Certainly. This house is the safest place. She lies quite low, and never goes out. Here she comes.”

And at that moment the door opened, and Gemma entered. She was dressed in shabby black; her fair hair was twisted carelessly, and her small white hands bore no rings, yet, even slatternly and unkempt, she looked strikingly beautiful.

“So you are hiding with us?” the hump-backed man exclaimed, after he had greeted her.

“Yes,” she laughed.

“Where is your lover, Armytage?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “He may be abroad again, for all I know. I’ve neither seen nor heard from him since we parted nearly a month ago,” she said, drawing a chair close to the fire and seating herself, her feet placed coquettishly on the rusted fender.

“He knows nothing, I suppose?” Nenci growled, still smoking.

“Not a word. I’m not a fool, even though I may be in love.”

Both men laughed. They knew well the character of this beautiful woman before them, and placed the most implicit confidence in her.

“You really love him – eh?” Nenci inquired.

“I’ve already told you so a dozen times,” she answered impatiently.

“But you won’t desert us?” the younger man – whom they addressed as “The Gobbo,” Italian for hunchback – said earnestly.

“I am still with you,” she answered. “It is impossible for me to serve two masters. What time is the consultation to-night?”

“At ten,” answered Nenci, glancing up at the cheap metal timepiece on the mantel. “Arnoldo should be here in five minutes.”

The door again opened, and Nenci’s wife, a dark-haired Tuscan woman of about thirty, entered. The nasal twang of her speech stamped her at once as Livornese. She was good-looking, and, although ill-dressed, her drab skirt hung well, and her carriage had all the grace and suppleness of the South. For a moment she stood chatting to her husband, her visitor, and their companion, then turning down the smoking lamp, placed several chairs around the plain deal-topped table.

“Gemma hasn’t yet got used to London,” she laughed, as she busied herself preparing for the mysterious consultation which had been arranged. “She pines for her lover, and thinks this place a trifle poor after the big hotel at Charing Cross.”

“No, no,” Gemma protested. “I don’t complain. I’m quite safe here. And I can wait.”

“For your lover?” the Gobbo laughed, in a dry, supercilious tone. “It is a new sensation for you to love. L’amore è la gioia, il reposo la félicita – eh?”

Her clear eyes flashed upon him for an instant, but she did not reply. His words cut her to the quick. In that instant she thought of the man she adored, the man who was held aloof from her by reason of her secret.

Presently, after some further conversation, the door-bell rang, and Nenci’s wife, who promptly answered the summons, admitted two well-dressed men, Romanelli and Malvano.

The appearance of the latter was the signal for congratulations, Gemma alone holding aloof from them. She exchanged a glance with the Doctor, but he in an instant noticed its swift maliciousness, and remained silent.

After some conventional chatter, in which the Gobbo cracked many grim jokes, all six took seats around the table. Nenci had previously assured himself that the shutters were closed, and that the doors both back and front were securely barred, when Malvano was the first to speak.

“There are two of us absent,” he observed. “I received a telegram from one an hour ago. He is in Berlin, and could not be back in time. He apologises.”

“It is accepted,” they all exclaimed.

“And the other cannot come for reasons you all know.”

Then Nenci, a stern, striking figure, rather wild-looking, with his black, bushy hair slightly curled, bent forward earnestly, and said —

“Since last we held a consultation in Livorno some months ago, much has occurred, and it is necessary for us once again to review the situation. Most of us have had severe trials; more than one has fallen beneath the vengeance of our enemies; and more than one is now in penal servitude on Gorgona, that rocky island which lies within sight of the land we all of us love. Well, our ranks are thinner, indeed. Of our twenty-one brothers and sisters who met for the first time in Livorno three years ago only eight now remain. Yet we may accomplish much, for not one of us knows fear; all have been already tried and found staunch and true.”

“Are you sure there is no traitor among us?” Gemma asked, in a clear intense voice, her pointed chin resting upon her white palm as she listened to his speech.

“Whom do you suspect?” Nenci demanded, darting a quick look at her.

“I suspect no one,” she answered. “But in this desperate crisis we must, if we would successfully accomplish our object, have perfect faith in one another.”

“So we have,” Malvano said. “Here in London we are in absolute security. We have sacrificed enough, Heaven knows! Thirteen of us are already either in prison, or dead.”

Gemma sighed. She herself had been compelled to sacrifice a man’s passionate love, her own happiness and all that made life worth living, because of her connexion with this mysterious band which had its headquarters among the working class in London, and whose ramifications were felt in every part of Italy. She lifted her beautiful face once again. She was pale and desperate.

“Thirteen is an unlucky number,” remarked the Gobbo grimly.

“For the dead, yes. But eight of us are still living,” Malvano said.

“By the holy Virgin! it’s a desperate game we are playing,” Nenci’s wife exclaimed.

“Shut your mouth,” growled her husband roughly. “When your opinion is required, we’ll ask for it.” She was a slim, fragile woman, with a pale face full of romance, black eyes that flashed like gems, and a profusion of dark, frizzy hair, worn with those three thin spiral curls falling over the brow, in the manner of all the Livornesi. Even though she existed in squalid Walworth, she still preserved in the mode of dressing her hair the fashion she had been used to since a child. In that drab, mournful street, she sighed often for her own home in gay, happy, far-off Livorno, with its great Piazza, where she loved to gossip; its fine old cathedral, where she had so often knelt to the Madonna; its leafy Passeggio where, with her friends, she would stroll and watch the summer sun sinking into the Mediterranean behind the grey distant islands. When her husband spoke thus roughly she exchanged glances across the table with Gemma, and her dark, sad eyes became filled with tears.

“No,” protested Malvano quickly, “that’s scarcely the language to use towards one who has risked all that your wife has risked. I entirely agree with her that the game’s desperate enough. We must allow no discord.”

“Exactly,” Nenci admitted. “The reason why I have summoned you here is because the time is past for mere words. We must now act swiftly and with precision. There is only one person we have to fear.”

“What is his name?” they all cried, almost with one accord.

“The man whom Gemma loves – Charles Armytage,” the black-haired man answered, his eyes still fixed maliciously upon the woman before him.

In an instant Gemma sprang up, her tiny hands clenched, an unnatural fire in her eyes.

“You would denounce him?” she cried wildly. “You who have held me bound and silent for so long, now seek to destroy the one single hope to which I cling; to snatch from me for ever all chance of peace and happiness!” The eyes of the five persons at the table were upon her as she, strikingly beautiful, stood erect and statuesque before them. They all saw how deeply in earnest and how desperate she was.

But Nenci laughed. The sound of his harsh voice stung her. She turned upon him fiercely, with a dangerous glint in her clear blue eyes, a look that none of that assembly had ever before witnessed.

“In the past,” she said, “I have served you. I have been your catspaw. I have risked love, life, everything, for the one object so near my heart: the desire for a vengeance complete and terrible. Because of my association with you” – and she gazed around at them as she spoke – “I have been debarred marriage with the man I love. In order that he should leave me, that his daily presence should no longer fill me with regret and vain longing for happiness, I was compelled to resort to self-accusation, and to denounce myself as an adventuress.”

“Then you actually spoke the truth for once in your life!” Nenci observed superciliously, a fierce expression in his black eyes.

“Enough!” Malvano protested. “We didn’t come here to discuss Gemma’s love affairs.”

“But this man, who for the last three years has sought my ruin, has made a false denunciation against the young Englishman. I know only too well what passes in his mind. He declares to you that the only person we need fear is Charles Armytage, and the natural conclusion occurs that he must be silenced. I know full well that at this moment our position is one of desperation. Well, you know my past full well, each one of you, and have, I think, recognised that I’m not a woman to be trifled with. You may stir up the past and cast its mud into my face. Good! But, however wrongly I’ve acted, it is because this man has held me within his merciless grip, and I have been compelled to do his bidding blindly, without daring to protest. You may tell me that I am an adventuress,” she cried vehemently; “that my reputation is evil and unenviable; that my friends in Italian society have cast me adrift because of the libellous stories you have so ingeniously circulated about me; but I tell you that I love Charles Armytage, and I swear on the tomb of my dead mother he shall never suffer because of his true, honest love for me.”

She had used the oath which the Italian always holds most sacred, and then a dead silence followed. Except the dark wild-looking visage of Nenci, every face betrayed surprise at this fierce and unexpected outburst.

But Nenci again laughed, stroking his scrubby beard with his thin sallow hand.

“I suppose you wish to desert us, eh?” he asked meaningly.

“While you keep faith with me I am, against my will, still your tool. Break faith with me, and the bond which has held me to you will at once be severed.”

“How?” inquired Malvano seriously; for he saw that at this crisis-time Gemma held their future in her hands. Nenci’s wild words had, alas! been ill-timed, and could not now be retracted.

“Simply this,” she answered. “I love; for the first time in my life, honestly and passionately. Through my association with you, my life is wrecked, and my lover lost to me. Yet I still have hope; and if you destroy that hope, then all desire for life will leave me. I care absolutely nothing for the future.”

“Well?” the Doctor observed mechanically.

“Cannot you understand?” she cried, turning upon him fiercely. “This man Lionello, has suggested that my lover’s life should be taken; that he should be silenced merely because he fears that my love may lead me to desert you, or turn traitor. I know well how easily such suggestions can be carried out; but remember, if a hand is lifted against him it is to me, the woman who loves him, that you shall answer; to me you shall beg for mercy, and, by the Virgin, I will give you none!” And her panting breast heaved and fell violently as she clutched the back of her chair for support.

For a few minutes there was again silence, deep and complete. Then Nenci laughed the same harsh supercilious laugh as before.

“Bah?” he cried, with curling lip. “Your foolish infatuation is of no account to us. Your lover holds knowledge which can ruin us. He must therefore be silenced!” Then glancing swiftly around the table with his black eyes, he asked, “Is that agreed?”

With one accord there was a bold, clear response. All gave an answer in the affirmative.

Chapter Twenty One

At Lyddington

Outside it was a dry, crisp, frosty night, but in Doctor Malvano’s drawing-room at Lyddington a great wood fire threw forth a welcome glow, the skins spread upon the floor were soft and warm, and the fine, old-fashioned room, furnished with that taste and elegance which a doctor of independent means could afford, was extremely comfortable and cosy. “Ben,” the Doctor’s faithful old black dog, lay stretched out lazily before the fire, a pet cat had curled itself in the easiest of easy chairs, and with her white fingers rambling over the keys of the grand piano sat a slim, graceful woman. It was Gemma.

With Mrs Nenci as companion, she had been visiting at Lyddington for about a fortnight, and, truth to tell, found life in that rural village much more pleasant than in the unwholesome side street off the Walworth Road. They had both left Boyson Road suddenly late one night, after receiving a note from Nenci, who had been absent a couple of days. This note was one of warning, telling them to fly, and giving them directions to go straight to Lyddington. This they had done, receiving a cordial welcome from the Doctor, who had apparently received word by telegraph, and understood the situation perfectly. So they had installed themselves in the Doctor’s house, and led a quiet, tranquil life of severe respectability. Gemma dressed well, as befitted the Doctor’s visitor, for she had received one of her trunks which, after leaving the Hotel Victoria, she had deposited in the cloakroom at Charing Cross Station, and her costumes were always tasteful and elegant. She had obtained a cycle from Uppingham, and the weather being dry and frosty, she rode daily alone over the hilly Rutlandshire roads, to old-world Gretton, to long, straggling Rockingham, with its castle high up among the leafless trees, to Seaton Station, or even as far afield as the tiny hamlet of Blatherwycke. The honest country folk looked askance at her, be it said, for her natural chic she could not suppress, and her cycling skirt was just a trifle too short, when judged from an English standpoint. Her dress was dark blue serge, confined at the waist by a narrow, white silk ribbon, its smartness having been much admired when she had spun along the level roads of the Cascine. But English and Italian ideas differ very considerably, and she was often surprised when the country people stood and gaped at her. Yet it was only natural. When she dismounted she could only speak half a dozen words of English, and Rutland folk are always suspicious of the foreigner – especially a woman.

As she sat at the piano on this chilly night, she looked eminently beautiful in a loose, rich tea-gown of sage-green plush, with front of pale pink silk, a gown of striking magnificence, with its heavy silver belt glittering beneath the shaded lamplight. It was made in a style which no English dressmaker could accomplish, and fastened at the throat by a quaint brooch consisting of three tiny golden playing-cards, set with diamonds and rubies, and fastened together by a pearl-headed pin, a charming little phantasy. The pink silk, in combination with the sombre green, set off her fair beauty admirably, yet her face was a trifle wan as she mechanically fingered the keys with all the suppleness and rapidity of a good player. But she was Tuscan, and the love of music was in her inborn. In her own far-off country one could hear the finest opera for sixpence, and there was scarcely any household that did not possess its mandoline, and whose members did not chant those old canzonette amorose. Music is part of the Italian’s life.

She stopped at last, slowly glancing around the handsome room, and drawing a heavy sigh. At that moment a sense of utter loneliness oppressed her. Her companion, Mrs Nenci, had retired to bed half an hour before, and the Doctor was still in his study, where he usually spent the greater part of his time. He was often locked in alone for hours together, and was careful never to allow any one to enter on any pretext. She had, indeed, never seen the interior of Malvano’s den, and was often seized with curiosity to know how he spent his time there through so many hours. As she sat silent, she pondered, as she ever did, over her lost lover, and wondered if he were still in England, or if, weary and despairing, he had left for the Continent again.

“He has misjudged me,” she murmured – “cruelly misjudged me.”

Her fathomless blue eyes glistened with tears, as, turning again to the instrument, she commenced to play and sing, in a soft, sweet contralto, the old Tuscan love-song, “Ah! non mi amava”; the song sung by the contadinelle in the vineyards and the maize-fields, where the green lizards dart across the sun-baked stones – where life is without a care, so long as one has a handful of baked chestnuts, or a plate of polenta di castagne – where the air is sweet and balmy and the very atmosphere breathes of love.

“E mi diceva che avria sfidato,Per ottenermi tutto il creato;Che nel mio sguardo, nel mio sorrisoStavan le gioie del Paradiso.E mentre al core cosi parlava.Ah! non mi amava! no, non mi amava!“Tu sei, diceva, l’angelo mio:Tu sei la stella d’ogni desio:Il sol mio bene sei che m’avanza;Tu de’ miei giorni se’ la speranza.Fin le sue pene mi raccontava,Ah! non mi amava! no, non mi amava!”

Slowly, in a voice full of emotion, she sang the old song she had heard so many times when a child, until its sad, serious air trembled through the room.

Behind her were two long windows, which, opening upon the lawn, were now heavily curtained to keep out the icy draughts. Blasts of cold air seemed to penetrate to every corner of that high-up house, exposed as it was to the chill winds sweeping across the hills. As she was singing, one of the maids entered with her candle, and placing it upon the table, wished her good-night.

“Good-night!” she answered in her pretty broken English; and, when the girl had gone, went on playing, but very softly, so as not to disturb the household. Her voice, full of emotion, had repeated the final words of that passionate verse —

“Non aveva core che per amarmiCon i suoi detti ei m’ingannava,Ah! non mi amava! no, non mi amava!”

when the curtains before one of the windows behind her suddenly stirred, and an eager face peered through between them. The slight sound attracted her, and she turned quickly with a low exclamation of fear. Next, instant, however, she sprang up from the piano with a glad cry, for the man who had thus secretly entered was none other than Charles Armytage.

“You, Nino!” she gasped, pale and trembling, holding aloof from him in the first moments of her surprise.

“Yes,” he replied in a low, intense tone, standing before her in hat and overcoat. “I came here to see the Doctor, but hearing your well-remembered voice outside, and finding the window unfastened, came in. You – you do not welcome me,” he added with disappointment. “Why are you here?”

“Welcome you!” she echoed. “You, who are in my thoughts every day, every hour, every moment; you who, by leaving me, have crushed all hope, all life from me, Nino! Ah! no; I – I welcome you. But forgive me; I never expected that we should meet in this house, of all places.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. Her fingers twitched nervously.

“Because – well, because you ought not to come here,” she answered ambiguously. She remembered Nenci’s covert threat, and knew well what risks her lover ran. He was in deadly peril, and only she herself could shield him.

“I don’t understand you,” he exclaimed. “I have for the past month searched everywhere for you. You left the hotel and disappeared; I have made inquiries in Livorno and in Florence, believing you had returned to Italy, and here to-night, as I passed across the lawn, I heard your voice, and have now found you.”

“Why?” she inquired, her trembling hand still upon the piano. “Is not all our love now of the past? I am unworthy of you, Nino, and I told you so honestly. I could not deceive you further.”

“Heaven knows!” he cried, “you deceived me enough. You have never even told me your real name.”

She looked at him with an expression of fear in her eyes. “Ah!” she cried. “You know the truth, Nino. I see by your face!”

“I know that you, whom I have known as Gemma Fanetti, are none other than the Contessa Funaro!”

Her breast heaved and fell quickly, and she hung her head.

“Well?”

He moved towards her, his hands still in the pockets of his heavy tweed overcoat.

“Well,” he repeated, “and what excuse have you for so deceiving me?”

“None,” she answered in her soft Tuscan, her eyes still downcast. “I loved you, Nino, and I feared – ”

She hesitated, without finishing the sentence.

“You feared to tell me the truth, even though you well knew that I was foolishly infatuated; that I was a love-blind idiot? No; I don’t believe you,” he cried fiercely. “You had some further, some deeper motive.” She was silent. Her nervous fingers hitched themselves in the lace of her gown, and she grew pallid and haggard.

“I now know who you are; how grossly you have deceived me, and how ingeniously I have been tricked,” he cried bitterly, speaking Italian with difficulty. “You whom I believed honest and loving, I have found to be only an adventuress, a woman whose notoriety has spread from Como to Messina.”

“Yes,” she cried hoarsely, “yes, Nino, I am an adventuress. Now that my enemies have exposed me, concealment is no longer possible. I deceived you, but with an honest purpose in view. My name, I well know, is synonymous with all that is vicious. I am known as The Funaro – the extravagant woman whose lovers are legion, and of whom stories of reckless waste and ingenious fraud are told by the jeunesse dorée in every city in Italy. Ask of any of the smart young men who drink at the Gambrinus at Milan, at Genoa, at Rome, or at Florence, and they will relate stories by the hour of my wild, adventurous life, of my loves and my hatreds, of my gaiety and my sorrow. Yes, I, alas I know it all. I have the reputation of being the gayest woman in all gay Italy; and yet – and yet,” she added in a soft voice, “I love you, Nino.”

“No!” he cried, drawing from her with repugnance, as if in fear that her hands should touch him; “it is not possible that we can exchange words of affection after this vile deceit. All is now plain why the police of Livorno ordered you to leave the city; why Hutchinson, the Consul, urged me to part from you; why, when we drove together in those sun-baked streets, every one turned to look at you. They knew you!” he cried. “They knew you – and they pitied me!”

She shrank at these cruel, bitter words as if he had dealt her a blow. From head to foot she trembled as, with an effort, she took a few uneven steps towards him.

“You denounce me!” she cried in a low tone. “You, the man I love, declare that I am base, vile, and heartless. Well, if you wish, I will admit all the charges you thus level against me. Only one will I refute. You say that I am an adventuress; you imply that I have never loved you.”

“Certainly,” he cried. “I have been your dupe. You led me to believe in your innocence, while all the time the papers are commenting upon your adventures, and printing scandals anent your past. Because I did not know your language well, and because I seldom read an Italian newspaper, you were bold enough to believe that I should remain in utter ignorance. But I have discovered the extent of your perfidy. I know now, that in dealing with you, I’m dealing with one whose shrewdness and cunning are notorious throughout the whole of Italy.”

“Then you have no further love for me, Nino?” she asked blankly, after a brief space.

“Love! No, I hate you!” he cried. “You led me to believe in your uprightness and honesty, yet I find that you, of all women in Italy, are the least desirable, as an acquaintance – the least possible as a wife!”

“You hate me?” she gasped hoarsely. “You – Nino! – hate me?”

“Yes,” he cried, his hands clenched in excitement, “I hate you!”

“Then why have you come here?” she asked. “Even if you had heard my voice, you need not have entered this room to taunt me.”

“I have come to call upon the Doctor,” he answered.

“Eleven o’clock at night is a curious hour at which to call upon a friend,” she observed. “Your business with him must be very pressing.”

“It is – it is,” he answered quickly, striding to and fro. “I must see him to-night.”