Part 32

Mary had come to feel very happily at home with the Winters in the short time she had spent with them; and often at night when she dreamed of being at the Villa Bella Vista she waked thankfully, with a sense of escape from something unknown yet vaguely terrible. She could talk with Rose and George Winter as with old friends, and Vanno too had the feeling of having known them both for a long time.

They began to tell of their adventures with the Gonzales family at Roquebrune, and Rose caught at the excuse to put off the moment she dreaded.

"It was such fun up there!" Mary exclaimed. "I'd no idea that one bought land by the square yard, or metre; but it's the way here, apparently; and Vanno's going to give that handsome young man who's engaged to your maid twelve francs a metre for his _terrain_, although there's no road to it. But really that's a great advantage according to the father, a large yellow old man with no hair to speak of, and only one tooth, round which his words seem to eddy as water eddies round a stone in a pool. It was fascinating to watch! We're to have crowds of fireflies, because there'll be no motor dust; and the saying among the peasants is that the _mouches brillantes_ search always with their lanterns, for a lost brother. And birds will '_se coucher dans les roses chez nous_.' Isn't that a darling expression? Think of having birds go to bed in your roses! So you see, the land's quite worth the twelve francs, because there's no road; and I almost hope there'll never be one, for Vanno and I shan't want to come down often from our castle in the air, where the view's so wonderful. There's no water there yet; but the most fun of all to-day was the water-diviner the old Gonzales brought. He squatted on the ground, holding an immense silver watch by a chain--a little gnome of a man with a huge head thatched with gray hair. As he swung his watch, tendons in his throat worked as chicken's claws do scratching for worms; and whenever his watch began to swing violently it meant that he was over a spring. He found three springs within a few yards of each other, so we've only to dig, and get torrents of water."

"I'm sure you were children in the hands of those shrewd peasants," said Rose, "unless your friend the curé was with you."

"No, he wasn't, but he sent a man to translate the _patois_, for the old Gonzales can't speak much French; and it was lucky we had this man to take our part, because of a big caroubier-tree on the place which belongs to a distant cousin of the Gonzales, and has been in his family for generations. Vanno must buy it separately, otherwise the owner will have a right to come and beat it all night if he likes, or tether animals under the branches. Fortunately the curé's friend warned us in time."

"Gonzales is rather a celebrated old chap," George Winter remarked, composing his mind as Mary talked on. "He made a reputation by refusing a fortune in order to keep a tiny _baraque_ of a house which he and his wife had lived in for forty years."

"So he told us," said Vanno. "A wonderful story; it sounded too good to be true."

"Was it about the Russian countess who wanted to buy a large piece of land, and all the other peasant owners were keen to sell, except Gonzales, who had a bit about twenty yards square, exactly in the middle?" asked Rose.

"Yes, and the countess went up and up in her bidding from two thousand francs to four hundred thousand; but Gonzales wouldn't sell, because he liked the view. He told us that he still lives in the _baraque_, though he owns other houses and much land."

"Perfectly true," said Rose. "I walk up and chat with him sometimes. He's very rich for a peasant, and shrewd, though stupid too, for he has a horror of banks and hides his money heaven knows where. He had thousands of francs in banknotes in a cellar among his potatoes, and they were all eaten by rats; but he only shrugged his shoulders and said 'twas no worse than having them devoured by speculators. Oh, these peasants of the Riviera are wonderful!"

"Vanno and I will make friends with them when we have a house up there," said Mary. "Maybe it will be ready next year. Who knows? Vanno says we must come every season, if only for a few weeks, just to show ourselves that we care for other things than the Casino. And then, how delightful to see our friends! You, who have been so good to me, and Captain Hannaford, if he's living in his Italian château----"

"Dear, he won't be there," said Rose, laying her hand on Mary's, as the two sat together on the flowery chintz sofa.

"Why--what makes you think that?" Mary asked quickly, noticing at last the pallor of Rose's face.

"I don't think. I know. George and I have been wondering how we were to tell you, because you and Captain Hannaford were such good friends."

"Were? Oh, Mrs. Winter, he is not--dead? But no, we met him walking day before yesterday. He looked--much as usual. Only perhaps a little pale."

"His heart must have been weak," Rose said. "You know, he didn't sleep well. And a little while ago they found that he'd passed away in the night quite peacefully. They believe it must have been an overdose of veronal. He was in the habit of taking it."

Mary sprang up, her hands clasped and pressed against her breast. All colour was drained from her face. There was a look of horror in her eyes, as if she saw some dreadful thing which others could not see. But Rose thought that she knew what brought the look, and hurried on before Mary could speak. "Such accidents have been happening often lately. People oughtn't to be allowed to buy drugs and take any dose they choose."

"It--they do say that--that it was an accident?" Mary stammered, the blood flowing slowly back to cheeks and lips.

"Oh, yes. Dick, who told us, said so at once. And everybody else here will say it, you may be sure."

Vanno went to Mary, and taking her clasped hands, with gentle force drew her against his shoulder, in true Latin indifference to the presence of others. "Darling, don't look so desperate," he said. "Poor Hannaford wasn't a happy man in his life. I think he must be glad to die."

"Ah, that is the reason I----" Mary stopped. She had not told him or any one that Hannaford had wished to be more than a friend to her. It had not seemed right to tell even Vanno about another's love and disappointment. Almost it would have been, she felt, like boasting.

"Perhaps George and I might have let you go on being happy while you were with us," Rose said, "if a letter hadn't come addressed to you in Captain Hannaford's handwriting. It was better for you to know everything before opening it, just in case----" Rose did not finish her sentence, but, getting up, went to the mantelpiece, where she had placed the envelope in front of a gilded French clock that looked pitifully frivolous as a background.

"Would you like us to go out, and let you read your letter alone with the Prince?" she asked, as she gave the envelope to Mary.

The girl shook her head. "No, I'd rather have you all with me."

For a minute she stood with the sealed envelope in her hand, looking down at her name in Hannaford's clearly formed, thick, and very black handwriting. She had received two or three notes from him, and in spite of their friendship had tossed them indifferently away as soon as read. But that was before their luncheon together at the Rochers Rouges. Since then he had not written. Mary wished now that she had kept his letters, and her heart was heavy with remorse because she had thought very seldom about him since her need of his sympathy no longer existed. How selfish and cruel she had been!

The girl made a sudden movement as if to break the seal pressed by Hannaford's ring, but paused, and taking a hatpin from her hat carefully cut the envelope across the top. Pulling out the folded sheet of paper she turned away even from Vanno, making an excuse that she must have more light.

My One Friend [Hannaford's letter began]: You have many friends, and that is as it should be, but I have only one human being dear enough to be called by the good name of "friend": _You._ And that's why I am writing you now. There's nobody else I care to write to; but somehow I want you to know that I haven't got a very long lease of life. Doctors tell me this. My heart isn't much good for the ordinary everyday uses a man wants to put his heart to, and soon it may decide to strike work. I feel sure this verdict is a true one, but I wouldn't bother you with my presentiments if it weren't for a certain thing which concerns your future. I may wake up dead--as the Irishman remarked--any morning, and I want you to have whatever is mine to leave behind me. You mustn't object to this, for it's the one thought that gives me pleasure; and honestly there's no one else to whom I can bequeath my worldly goods. All I have worth giving is the Château Lontana and just enough money to make it habitable. I am writing this letter there, on the loggia I told you about. I used to wish it could be arranged for you to come and see my big new toy. I was pretty sure you would like it, for I felt--though you never told me so--that you cared a great deal for beautiful and romantic things.

The Château Lontana in its poetic wilderness of garden is both romantic and beautiful. You could never manage to come; but that doesn't matter now, if I may think of you there when the place is yours. Of course I may hang on in this weary vale for years, but I hope not, because (as I've mentioned more than once) even if I haven't outstayed my welcome, I'm getting more than a little tired of the entertainment provided by that "host who murders all his guests"--the World.

If I should drop off suddenly, you will find my will in the hands of Signor Antonio Nicolini, via Roma, Ventimiglia. He's a nice little Italian lawyer whom I've made my man of business lately. He has all my affairs in charge. It will be the greatest favour and kindness you can do me, if you will take this house I loved but never lived in. This I hope you will do for my sake--the sake of a friend. You know you promised that day at the Rochers Rouges to grant me a favour, and I hold you to your word. Another request I venture to make, you must grant only if you don't find the idea repugnant. It oughtn't to matter much to me one way or the other, and it shall be as you choose, but I should like when my body's cremated (that is to be done in any case) to have my ashes lie at the south end of the garden, where some steps are cut in the rock coming out at a wonderful viewpoint. If after death one can see what goes on in this world, it would console me for much to know of your coming sometimes to the Château Lontana, and perhaps sitting on that old stone seat on the rock-platform at the bottom of those steps. There is a wall of rock above the seat, and if a small niche could be cut there for an urn, with a tablet of marble to mark the spot, it would please my fancy. Should you decide to gratify the whim, please have no name carved on the marble, but only a verse you quoted that day at the Rochers Rouges. I think you told me it was by a Scottish poet, whom you liked; and I said the words had in them a strange undertone of music like a lullaby: the sound of the sea, and the sadness and mystery of the sea. You will remember. It was after luncheon was over, but we were still at the table, and you sat with your elbow on the low wall, looking down into the water.

You are not to suppose, though, that because I speak of the sadness of the sea, I am sad in the thought that soon I may be gone where I can no longer hear its voice. I am not sad, and you must not be sad either at my talk of dying, or at my death when it comes. Think of me, but not with sadness. Do not come to see my body before it's given to the burning: do not come to my funeral. I don't want a funeral, for though I am not without a religion of my own, it's one that does not lend itself to ceremonies. As for the mystery of the sea, it and all other mysteries which are hidden from us now will soon, I trust, be clear to

Your ever loyal, faithful friend, JOHN HANNAFORD.

Long before she reached the end tears were raining down Mary's face. She could not read the letter aloud, yet she wanted the others to know what Hannaford had said. On an impulse she handed the closely covered sheet to Mrs. Winter.

Rose took the letter, and read it out, not quite steadily. For a few seconds no one spoke, when she had finished. But at last she asked in a veiled voice what was the verse Hannaford wished to have on the tablet. The question seemed to Mary the only one she could have answered at that moment.

Almost in a whisper she began to repeat the verse of Fiona Macleod, for which, she remembered, Hannaford had begged twice over, as they two sat on the palm-roofed terrace built over the sea:

"'Play me a lulling chant, O Anthem-Maker, Out of the fall of lonely seas and the wind's sorrow. Behind are the burning glens of the sunset sky Where, like blown ghosts, the seamews Wail their desolate sea dirges. Make now of these a lulling chant, O Anthem-Maker.'"

"That is all?" asked George Winter.

"That is all," Mary echoed.

"I think I understand why a man might want just those words for a last lullaby," Vanno said. "You'll do as he asks, I know, Mary, about the urn and the tablet with the verse, and going there to sit and think of him sometimes."

"Oh, yes, I will do that," she replied quickly. "But--I don't think I can do the other thing. I _can't_ live in his house. Anyway, I can't live in it with you, Vanno. It would be----" She did not finish. To have ended the sentence would have been the same as telling Hannaford's secret.

"I understand," Vanno said. But it was in Mary's mind that he did not and could not wholly understand. She did not even want him to understand. "You needn't live there," he went on. "Yet you can visit the place sometimes, from our 'castle in the air'; and maybe we can think of a way to use the house, if you accept it, which Hannaford would approve."

"You can hardly refuse to accept it now Captain Hannaford is dead," said Rose. "Not to do what he so much hoped you would do for his sake would be--almost treacherous."

"Yes, it seems to me you're bound to take his gift," George Winter added. "If you don't want to live in the house, why not make it a home of rest for women workers who are tired or ill, and need a few weeks of warmth and sunshine, but can't afford even cheap pension prices?"

"Next season we might get up a bazaar to support such a home," Rose suggested, warming to the scheme.

"Perhaps I could support it myself," Mary said, "if Vanno would consent. I haven't lost much more than my Casino winnings, and I should like to do some one good. I've ever so much money of my own. I know very little about such things, but I believe I must be quite rich. And then there's the jewellery I've bought since I came here. I've lost interest in it already. I could sell some to help the Home, couldn't I? The only things I really care for are the pearls, which I have on now under my dress; and the rest I mean to leave with you, Mrs. Winter, if you don't mind, instead of troubling to take the jewel-case over to the Villa Mirasole."

"Of course I don't mind," Rose said, "except that it's a responsibility. However, thieves aren't looking for 'big hauls' in parsons' houses. I'll store the jewel-case with pleasure; but you must keep the key of the cabinet, lest you should want to open it some day when I am out."

Then they went back to the subject of the Château Lontana, planning how to carry out Hannaford's wishes, even though Mary felt it would be impossible to live in the house. George Winter volunteered to arrange all details concerning the funeral urn and the placing of the tablet, because he had learned to feel an affection for Mary Grant which was almost that of a brother for a very young and beautiful sister. He wanted her, in spite of all, to be happy in her visit to Princess Della Robbia, happy as she could not be if constantly reminded of Hannaford and his tragedy. He offered also to see the lawyer at Ventimiglia, so that Vanno, who proposed soon to go to Rome, might spend his time meanwhile at the Villa Mirasole.

"Don't thank me," the chaplain said at last. "It is but little I'm engaging myself to do. And it's as much for Hannaford's sake as yours. Poor Hannaford! I didn't do half enough for him when he was alive. I feel as if I owed him something now."

Mary did not speak, but she shivered and very gently drew her hand away from Vanno's. She too felt that she owed Hannaford reparation, not for what she had left undone during his life, but rather for what she had done. She had taken his friendship, his kindness, his sympathy, and given him nothing in return except a little pity following upon repulsion. And she dared not ask herself how far her thoughtlessness was answerable for his death.

XXXII

"A letter for the Highness and one waits for answer," announced Americo, with the air of presenting a choice gift, as he bowed to the Princess over a small silver tray.

She was lying among the red cushions of her favourite hammock on the loggia. Beside her in a basket chair was Angelo, with a book in his hand which he did not read, because when Marie was near him everything else seemed irrelevant. Not far away Mary sat, writing a letter to Vanno which ought to reach him the next morning. Yesterday at five o'clock she had seen him off in the Rome express; and before this time he must have arrived.

"Idina Bland's hand," said Angelo, as his wife took a large gray envelope from the silver tray. "I wonder----" But he did not finish his sentence. To do so would have been superfluous, as in a moment he would know what Idina was writing about; and, besides, Angelo shrank curiously--perhaps foolishly, he sometimes felt--from speaking of Idina Bland or even mentioning her name to Marie. He was not superstitious, or at least, he told himself often that he was not; yet the very thought of his cousin depressed him as if she were a witch who from any distance could cast a spell of ill-luck upon a house.

Marie had no suspicion of Angelo's feeling for Miss Bland. She knew from him that there had been a "boy and girl flirtation" when Idina had first come to stay at the Duke's country place years ago; and there was enough malice in her to enjoy the idea of a defeated rival's jealousy. For this reason she had found a certain pleasure in Idina's few visits to the Villa Mirasole, though the pale "statue-eyes" had been cold as glass for her. If Idina disliked her a little, Marie had considered it natural, and had been secretly amused, saying nothing to Angelo.

"Miss Bland writes that an American friend of hers has come to stay a day or two only, and she'd like very much to have her meet us and see the villa," Marie announced, glancing through the short letter. "She wants to know if we'd mind asking them to lunch to-day. I suppose we don't mind, do we?" She held the gray sheet out to Angelo, but he did not take it.

"I suppose not," he answered reluctantly. "But it's a bore having a stranger thrust on us. Why not be engaged for luncheon and invite them for tea?"

Marie laughed. "Selfish man! I know what's in your head. You'd go out and leave Mary and me to entertain your dear cousin and her friend. No, I won't have Miss Bland think I'm jealous or inhospitable--for of course she'd blame me. She knows we never go out for luncheon. Unfortunately I told her. I'll write a line to send back by her messenger, to say lunch by all means."

"Very well, if you think you must." Angelo spoke with gloomy resignation.

"Dear Mary, you write," said Marie lazily. "You've got paper and a stylo, and she doesn't know my hand. I'm too comfortable to move."

Mary put aside her letter to Vanno which must catch the next post, and scribbled a few lines to Miss Bland.

"Will you sign if I bring you the pen?" she asked.

"No, thanks. I give you leave to forge my name. It will soon be your own, so you may as well practise writing it," said Marie. "Just put the initial 'M.'"

The girl obeyed. "M. Della Robbia," she wrote, forming the letters almost lovingly. How strange to think that before long that would be her own name! Mary Della Robbia! The sound was very sweet to her, though to be a princess was of no great importance. If Vanno were a peasant, to become his wife would make her a queen.

When the answer was ready, Americo received it upon his little tray.

"Two ladies for luncheon, you may tell the _chef_," said Marie.

"All right, Highness. And other Highness, I was to make you know from the gardener, one fox have bin catched in a trap on the way to eat the rabbits of the semaphore. If the Highness wish to visit him, he is there for this morning."

"One would think it was an invitation for an 'At Home,'" laughed Marie behind the butler's broad back, as he vanished with the letter, through the window-door. "Fancy, foxes in the woods of Cap Martin, within four miles of Monte Carlo! They ought to be extra cunning."