The Gadfly Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  MR. JAMES BURTON did not at all like the idea of his young step-brother"careering about Switzerland" with Montanelli. But positively to forbida harmless botanizing tour with an elderly professor of theology wouldseem to Arthur, who knew nothing of the reason for the prohibition,absurdly tyrannical. He would immediately attribute it to religious orracial prejudice; and the Burtons prided themselves on theirenlightened tolerance. The whole family had been staunch Protestantsand Conservatives ever since Burton & Sons, ship-owners, of London andLeghorn, had first set up in business, more than a century back. Butthey held that English gentlemen must deal fairly, even with Papists;and when the head of the house, finding it dull to remain a widower, hadmarried the pretty Catholic governess of his younger children, the twoelder sons, James and Thomas, much as they resented the presence ofa step-mother hardly older than themselves, had submitted with sulkyresignation to the will of Providence. Since the father's death theeldest brother's marriage had further complicated an already difficultposition; but both brothers had honestly tried to protect Gladys, aslong as she lived, from Julia's merciless tongue, and to do their duty,as they understood it, by Arthur. They did not even pretend to like thelad, and their generosity towards him showed itself chiefly in providinghim with lavish supplies of pocket money and allowing him to go his ownway.

  In answer to his letter, accordingly, Arthur received a cheque tocover his expenses and a cold permission to do as he pleased abouthis holidays. He expended half his spare cash on botanical books andpressing-cases, and started off with the Padre for his first Alpineramble.

  Montanelli was in lighter spirits than Arthur had seen him in for a longwhile. After the first shock of the conversation in the garden he hadgradually recovered his mental balance, and now looked upon the casemore calmly. Arthur was very young and inexperienced; his decision couldhardly be, as yet, irrevocable. Surely there was still time to win himback by gentle persuasion and reasoning from the dangerous path uponwhich he had barely entered.

  They had intended to stay a few days at Geneva; but at the first sightof the glaring white streets and dusty, tourist-crammed promenades,a little frown appeared on Arthur's face. Montanelli watched him withquiet amusement.

  "You don't like it, carino?"

  "I hardly know. It's so different from what I expected. Yes, the lake isbeautiful, and I like the shape of those hills." They were standing onRousseau's Island, and he pointed to the long, severe outlines ofthe Savoy side. "But the town looks so stiff and tidy, somehow--soProtestant; it has a self-satisfied air. No, I don't like it; it remindsme of Julia."

  Montanelli laughed. "Poor boy, what a misfortune! Well, we are here forour own amusement, so there is no reason why we should stop. Suppose wetake a sail on the lake to-day, and go up into the mountains to-morrowmorning?"

  "But, Padre, you wanted to stay here?"

  "My dear boy, I have seen all these places a dozen times. My holiday isto see your pleasure. Where would you like to go?"

  "If it is really the same to you, I should like to follow the river backto its source."

  "The Rhone?"

  "No, the Arve; it runs so fast."

  "Then we will go to Chamonix."

  They spent the afternoon drifting about in a little sailing boat. Thebeautiful lake produced far less impression upon Arthur than the grayand muddy Arve. He had grown up beside the Mediterranean, and wasaccustomed to blue ripples; but he had a positive passion for swiftlymoving water, and the hurried rushing of the glacier stream delightedhim beyond measure. "It is so much in earnest," he said.

  Early on the following morning they started for Chamonix. Arthur was invery high spirits while driving through the fertile valley country;but when they entered upon the winding road near Cluses, and the great,jagged hills closed in around them, he became serious and silent.From St. Martin they walked slowly up the valley, stopping to sleep atwayside chalets or tiny mountain villages, and wandering on again astheir fancy directed. Arthur was peculiarly sensitive to the influenceof scenery, and the first waterfall that they passed threw him intoan ecstacy which was delightful to see; but as they drew nearer tothe snow-peaks he passed out of this rapturous mood into one of dreamyexaltation that Montanelli had not seen before. There seemed to be akind of mystical relationship between him and the mountains. He wouldlie for hours motionless in the dark, secret, echoing pine-forests,looking out between the straight, tall trunks into the sunlit outerworld of flashing peaks and barren cliffs. Montanelli watched him with akind of sad envy.

  "I wish you could show me what you see, carino," he said one day as helooked up from his book, and saw Arthur stretched beside him on the mossin the same attitude as an hour before, gazing out with wide, dilatedeyes into the glittering expanse of blue and white. They had turnedaside from the high-road to sleep at a quiet village near the fallsof the Diosaz, and, the sun being already low in a cloudless sky, hadmounted a point of pine-clad rock to wait for the Alpine glow over thedome and needles of the Mont Blanc chain. Arthur raised his head witheyes full of wonder and mystery.

  "What I see, Padre? I see a great, white being in a blue void that hasno beginning and no end. I see it waiting, age after age, for the comingof the Spirit of God. I see it through a glass darkly."

  Montanelli sighed.

  "I used to see those things once."

  "Do you never see them now?"

  "Never. I shall not see them any more. They are there, I know; but Ihave not the eyes to see them. I see quite other things."

  "What do you see?"

  "I, carino? I see a blue sky and a snow-mountain--that is all when Ilook up into the heights. But down there it is different."

  He pointed to the valley below them. Arthur knelt down and bent overthe sheer edge of the precipice. The great pine trees, dusky in thegathering shades of evening, stood like sentinels along the narrow banksconfining the river. Presently the sun, red as a glowing coal, dippedbehind a jagged mountain peak, and all the life and light deserted theface of nature. Straightway there came upon the valley somethingdark and threatening--sullen, terrible, full of spectral weapons. Theperpendicular cliffs of the barren western mountains seemed like theteeth of a monster lurking to snatch a victim and drag him down into themaw of the deep valley, black with its moaning forests. The pinetrees were rows of knife-blades whispering: "Fall upon us!" and in thegathering darkness the torrent roared and howled, beating against itsrocky prison walls with the frenzy of an everlasting despair.

  "Padre!" Arthur rose, shuddering, and drew back from the precipice. "Itis like hell."

  "No, my son," Montanelli answered softly, "it is only like a humansoul."

  "The souls of them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death?"

  "The souls of them that pass you day by day in the street."

  Arthur shivered, looking down into the shadows. A dim white mist washovering among the pine trees, clinging faintly about the desperateagony of the torrent, like a miserable ghost that had no consolation togive.

  "Look!" Arthur said suddenly. "The people that walked in darkness haveseen a great light."

  Eastwards the snow-peaks burned in the afterglow. When the red light hadfaded from the summits Montanelli turned and roused Arthur with a touchon the shoulder.

  "Come in, carino; all the light is gone. We shall lose our way in thedark if we stay any longer."

  "It is like a corpse," Arthur said as he turned away from the spectralface of the great snow-peak glimmering through the twilight.

  They descended cautiously among the black trees to the chalet where theywere to sleep.

  As Montanelli entered the room where Arthur was waiting for him at thesupper table, he saw that the lad seemed to have shaken off the ghostlyfancies of the dark, and to have changed into quite another creature.

  "Oh, Padre, do come and look at this absurd dog! It can dance on itshind legs."

  He was as much absorbed in the dog and its accomplishments as hehad been in the after-glow. The woman o
f the chalet, red-faced andwhite-aproned, with sturdy arms akimbo, stood by smiling, while he putthe animal through its tricks. "One can see there's not much on his mindif he can carry on that way," she said in patois to her daughter. "Andwhat a handsome lad!"

  Arthur coloured like a schoolgirl, and the woman, seeing that he hadunderstood, went away laughing at his confusion. At supper he talkedof nothing but plans for excursions, mountain ascents, and botanizingexpeditions. Evidently his dreamy fancies had not interfered with eitherhis spirits or his appetite.

  When Montanelli awoke the next morning Arthur had disappeared. He hadstarted before daybreak for the higher pastures "to help Gaspard driveup the goats."

  Breakfast had not long been on the table, however, when he came tearinginto the room, hatless, with a tiny peasant girl of three years oldperched on his shoulder, and a great bunch of wild flowers in his hand.

  Montanelli looked up, smiling. This was a curious contrast to the graveand silent Arthur of Pisa or Leghorn.

  "Where have you been, you madcap? Scampering all over the mountainswithout any breakfast?"

  "Oh, Padre, it was so jolly! The mountains look perfectly glorious atsunrise; and the dew is so thick! Just look!"

  He lifted for inspection a wet and muddy boot.

  "We took some bread and cheese with us, and got some goat's milk upthere on the pasture; oh, it was nasty! But I'm hungry again, now; and Iwant something for this little person, too. Annette, won't you have somehoney?"

  He had sat down with the child on his knee, and was helping her to putthe flowers in order.

  "No, no!" Montanelli interposed. "I can't have you catching cold. Runand change your wet things. Come to me, Annette. Where did you pick herup?"

  "At the top of the village. She belongs to the man we saw yesterday--theman that cobbles the commune's boots. Hasn't she lovely eyes? She's gota tortoise in her pocket, and she calls it 'Caroline.'"

  When Arthur had changed his wet socks and came down to breakfast hefound the child seated on the Padre's knee, chattering volubly to himabout her tortoise, which she was holding upside down in a chubby hand,that "monsieur" might admire the wriggling legs.

  "Look, monsieur!" she was saying gravely in her half-intelligiblepatois: "Look at Caroline's boots!"

  Montanelli sat playing with the child, stroking her hair, admiring herdarling tortoise, and telling her wonderful stories. The woman of thechalet, coming in to clear the table, stared in amazement at the sightof Annette turning out the pockets of the grave gentleman in clericaldress.

  "God teaches the little ones to know a good man," she said. "Annette isalways afraid of strangers; and see, she is not shy with his reverenceat all. The wonderful thing! Kneel down, Annette, and ask the goodmonsieur's blessing before he goes; it will bring thee luck."

  "I didn't know you could play with children that way, Padre," Arthursaid an hour later, as they walked through the sunlit pasture-land."That child never took her eyes off you all the time. Do you know, Ithink----"

  "Yes?"

  "I was only going to say--it seems to me almost a pity that the Churchshould forbid priests to marry. I cannot quite understand why. You see,the training of children is such a serious thing, and it means so muchto them to be surrounded from the very beginning with good influences,that I should have thought the holier a man's vocation and the purer hislife, the more fit he is to be a father. I am sure, Padre, if you hadnot been under a vow,--if you had married,--your children would havebeen the very----"

  "Hush!"

  The word was uttered in a hasty whisper that seemed to deepen theensuing silence.

  "Padre," Arthur began again, distressed by the other's sombre look, "doyou think there is anything wrong in what I said? Of course I may bemistaken; but I must think as it comes natural to me to think."

  "Perhaps," Montanelli answered gently, "you do not quite realize themeaning of what you just said. You will see differently in a few years.Meanwhile we had better talk about something else."

  It was the first break in the perfect ease and harmony that reignedbetween them on this ideal holiday.

  From Chamonix they went on by the Tete-Noire to Martigny, where theystopped to rest, as the weather was stiflingly hot. After dinner theysat on the terrace of the hotel, which was sheltered from the sun andcommanded a good view of the mountains. Arthur brought out his specimenbox and plunged into an earnest botanical discussion in Italian.

  Two English artists were sitting on the terrace; one sketching, theother lazily chatting. It did not seem to have occurred to him that thestrangers might understand English.

  "Leave off daubing at the landscape, Willie," he said; "and draw thatglorious Italian boy going into ecstasies over those bits of ferns. Justlook at the line of his eyebrows! You only need to put a crucifix forthe magnifying-glass and a Roman toga for the jacket and knickerbockers,and there's your Early Christian complete, expression and all."

  "Early Christian be hanged! I sat beside that youth at dinner; he wasjust as ecstatic over the roast fowl as over those grubby little weeds.He's pretty enough; that olive colouring is beautiful; but he's not halfso picturesque as his father."

  "His--who?"

  "His father, sitting there straight in front of you. Do you mean to sayyou've passed him over? It's a perfectly magnificent face."

  "Why, you dunder-headed, go-to-meeting Methodist! Don't you know aCatholic priest when you see one?"

  "A priest? By Jove, so he is! Yes, I forgot; vow of chastity, and allthat sort of thing. Well then, we'll be charitable and suppose the boy'shis nephew."

  "What idiotic people!" Arthur whispered, looking up with dancing eyes."Still, it is kind of them to think me like you; I wish I were reallyyour nephew----Padre, what is the matter? How white you are!"

  Montanelli was standing up, pressing one hand to his forehead. "I am alittle giddy," he said in a curiously faint, dull tone. "Perhaps I wastoo much in the sun this morning. I will go and lie down, carino; it'snothing but the heat."

  *****

  After a fortnight beside the Lake of Lucerne Arthur and Montanellireturned to Italy by the St. Gothard Pass. They had been fortunate asto weather and had made several very pleasant excursions; but thefirst charm was gone out of their enjoyment. Montanelli was continuallyhaunted by an uneasy thought of the "more definite talk" for which thisholiday was to have been the opportunity. In the Arve valley he hadpurposely put off all reference to the subject of which they had spokenunder the magnolia tree; it would be cruel, he thought, to spoil thefirst delights of Alpine scenery for a nature so artistic as Arthur's byassociating them with a conversation which must necessarily be painful.Ever since the day at Martigny he had said to himself each morning; "Iwill speak to-day," and each evening: "I will speak to-morrow;" and nowthe holiday was over, and he still repeated again and again: "To-morrow,to-morrow." A chill, indefinable sense of something not quite the sameas it had been, of an invisible veil falling between himself andArthur, kept him silent, until, on the last evening of their holiday, herealized suddenly that he must speak now if he would speak at all. Theywere stopping for the night at Lugano, and were to start for Pisa nextmorning. He would at least find out how far his darling had been drawninto the fatal quicksand of Italian politics.

  "The rain has stopped, carino," he said after sunset; "and this is theonly chance we shall have to see the lake. Come out; I want to have atalk with you."

  They walked along the water's edge to a quiet spot and sat down on alow stone wall. Close beside them grew a rose-bush, covered with scarlethips; one or two belated clusters of creamy blossom still hung from anupper branch, swaying mournfully and heavy with raindrops. On the greensurface of the lake a little boat, with white wings faintly fluttering,rocked in the dewy breeze. It looked as light and frail as a tuft ofsilvery dandelion seed flung upon the water. High up on Monte Salvatorethe window of some shepherd's hut opened a golden eye. The roses hungtheir heads and dreamed under the still September clouds, and the waterplashed and murmured s
oftly among the pebbles of the shore.

  "This will be my only chance of a quiet talk with you for a long time,"Montanelli began. "You will go back to your college work and friends;and I, too, shall be very busy this winter. I want to understand quiteclearly what our position as regards each other is to be; and so, ifyou----" He stopped for a moment and then continued more slowly: "If youfeel that you can still trust me as you used to do, I want you to tellme more definitely than that night in the seminary garden, how far youhave gone."

  Arthur looked out across the water, listened quietly, and said nothing.

  "I want to know, if you will tell me," Montanelli went on; "whether youhave bound yourself by a vow, or--in any way."

  "There is nothing to tell, dear Padre; I have not bound myself, but I ambound."

  "I don't understand------"

  "What is the use of vows? They are not what binds people. If you feelin a certain way about a thing, that binds you to it; if you don't feelthat way, nothing else can bind you."

  "Do you mean, then, that this thing--this--feeling is quite irrevocable?Arthur, have you thought what you are saying?"

  Arthur turned round and looked straight into Montanelli's eyes.

  "Padre, you asked me if I could trust you. Can you not trust me, too?Indeed, if there were anything to tell, I would tell it to you; butthere is no use in talking about these things. I have not forgotten whatyou said to me that night; I shall never forget it. But I must go my wayand follow the light that I see."

  Montanelli picked a rose from the bush, pulled off the petals one byone, and tossed them into the water.

  "You are right, carino. Yes, we will say no more about these things;it seems there is indeed no help in many words----Well, well, let us goin."