The Devourers Part 46

And he let her cry for a long time.

Quarto had slipped back into the distance, and San Francesco D'Albaro was moving smoothly into view.

"I can't go on crying for ever," said Nancy, raising her face with a quivering smile, "and the Captain will think you are a huge, horrid, scolding English Ogre."

They were nearly in. "Get your little bag and things," he said to her, and she rose quickly and complied. Everybody was standing up waiting to land. Oh, how good it was to be taken care of and ordered about, to be told to do this and that! She stood behind him small and meek, holding her travelling-bag in one hand, and in the other the umbrellas and sticks strapped together. His large shoulders were before her like a wall. She raised the bundle of umbrellas to her face and kissed the curved top of his stick. And now, what?

They drove to the hotel. Then they had dinner. In the evening they sat on the balcony, and watched the people pa.s.sing below them. Handsome Italian officers, moustache-twisting and sword-clanking, pa.s.sed in twos and threes, eyeing the hurrying modistes and the self-conscious _signorine_ that walked beside their portly mothers and fathers. The military band was playing in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, and the music reached the balcony faintly. Then Nancy told him about her work. About the first book of verse that had set all Italy aflame, about the second, The Book, the work of her life, that had been interrupted.

He listened, smoking his cigar, and making no comment. Then he spoke.

"There is a boat from here on Wednesday. The _Kaiser Wilhelm_. A good old boat. Go over and fetch the child." Then he halted, and said: "Or do you like her to be brought up in America?"

"Oh no!" said Nancy.

"Well, fetch her," he said. "And fetch the old Fraulein across too, if she likes to come. Then go to Porto Venere, or to Spezia, or anywhere you like, and take a house, and sit down and work."

She could not speak. She saw Porto Venere white in the suns.h.i.+ne, tip-tilted over the sea, and she saw The Book that was to live, to live after all.

As she did not answer he said: "Don't you like it?"

She took his hand, and pressed it to her lips, and to her cheek, and to her heart. She could not answer. And his chilly blue eyes grew suddenly lighter than usual. "Dear little Miss Brown," he said; "dear, dear, foolish, little Miss Brown." And, bending forward, he kissed her forehead.

XVII

The _Gartenhaus_ on Staten Island in the twilight, with lamplight and firelight gleaming through its cas.e.m.e.nts, and a little hat of snow on its roof, looked like a Christmas-card, when Nancy hurried through the narrow garden-gate, and ran up the tiny gravel-path. She had left all her belongings at the dock in order not to lose an instant. Anne-Marie's pink fingers were dragging at her heart.

Fraulein, foggy as to time-tables and arrivals of boats, had thought it wisest not to attempt a meeting at the crowded, draughty, New York landing-station. She had kept Anne-Marie indoors for the last three days, saying: "Your mother may be here any moment." After the first thirty-six hours of poignant expectancy and frequent runnings to the gate, Anne-Marie had silently despised Fraulein for telling naughty untruths, and had whispered in the hairy ear of Schopenhauer that she would never again believe a word Fraulein ever said again.

Schopenhauer--whose name had been chosen by Fraulein for educational purposes, namely (as she wrote in her diary), "to enlarge the childish mind by familiarity with the names of authors and philosophers"--was sympathetic and equally sceptical when Fraulein Muller sibilantly urged him: "Schoppi, Schoppi, mistress is coming. Go seek mistress! Seek mistress, sir." But Schoppi, who had searched and sniffed every corner of the hedge, and dug rapid holes round the early cabbages and in the flower-bed, knew that "mistress" was a pleasurably exciting, but merely delusive and empty sound. And so n.o.body expected Nancy as she ran up the path in the twilight, and saw the lights s.h.i.+ning through the cas.e.m.e.nt.

Her heart beat in trepidant joy. She had been so anxious about Anne-Marie. During the last few hours of the journey she had had ghostly and tragic imaginings. What if Anne-Marie had been running about the island, and had fallen into the sea? What if a motor-car--her heart had given a great leap, and then dropped, like a ball of lead, turning her faint with reminiscent terror. She would not think about it. No, she would not think of such things any more. But what if Anne-Marie had scarlet fever? Yes! suddenly she felt convinced that Anne-Marie had scarlet fever, that she would see the little red flag of warning hanging out over the _Gartenhaus_ door....

Nancy made ready to knock; then, before doing so, she dropped quickly to her knees on the snowy doorstep, and folded her hands in a childlike att.i.tude of prayer: "O G.o.d! let me find Anne-Marie safe and happy!"

Almost in answer a sound struck her ear--a chord of sweetness and harmony, then a long, lonely note, and after it a quick twirl of running notes like a ripple of laughter. The violin!

Nancy sprang from the doorstep, and ran under the window that was lit up. She scrambled on to the rockery under it, and, scratching her hand against the climbing rose-branches, she grasped the ledge and looked in through the white-curtained gla.s.s. It was Anne-Marie. Standing in the circle of light from the lamp, with the violin held high on her left arm, and her cheek resting lightly against it, she looked like a little angel musician of Beato Angelico.

Her eyes were cast down, her floating hair rippled over her face.

Nancy's throat tightened as she looked. Then Nancy's brain staggered as she listened. For the child was playing like an artist. Trills and arpeggios ran from under her fingers like clear water. Now a full and sonorous chord checked their springing lightness, and again the bubbling runs rilled out, sprinkling the twilight with music.

Nancy's hand slipped from the sill, and a rose-branch hit the window.

Then the fox-terrier's sharp bark rang through the house; there were hurrying feet in the hall; the door was opened by the smiling Elisabeth--and Fraulein was exclaiming and questioning, and Anne-Marie was in her mother's arms. Warm, and living, and tight she held her creature, thanking G.o.d for the touch of the fleecy hair against her face, for the fresh cheek that smelt of soap, and the soft breath that smelt of gra.s.s and flowers.

"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! Have you missed me, darling?"

Anne-Marie was sobbing wildly. "No! No! I haven't! Only now! Only now!"

"But now you have me, my own love."

"But now I miss you! Now I miss you," sobbed Anne-Marie, incoherent and despairing. And her mother understood. Mothers understand.

"Anne-Marie! I shall never go away from you again! I promise!"

Anne-Marie looked up through s.h.i.+mmering tears. "Honest engine?" she asked brokenly, putting out a small damp hand.

"Honest engine," said Nancy, placing her hand solemnly in the hand of her little daughter. Schopenhauer, squirming with barks, was patted and admired, and made to sit up leaning against the leg of the table; and Fraulein told the news about Anne-Marie having _doch gegessen_ the tapioca-puddings, but never the porridge, and seldom the vegetables.

Then, as it was late, Anne-Marie was conducted upstairs by everybody, including Schopenhauer, and while Elisabeth unfastened b.u.t.tons and tapes, Fraulein brushed and plaited the golden hair, and Nancy, on her knees before the child, laughed with her and kissed her.

When she was in bed Elisabeth and Schopenhauer had to sit in the dark beside her until she slept.

"But, Fraulein, that will never do!" said Nancy, as they went down the little staircase together arm-in-arm. "You spoil her shockingly."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Fraulein. And as they entered the cheerful drawing-room, where the violin lay on the table, and the bow on a chair, and a piece of rosin on the sofa, Fraulein stopped, and said impressively, "You do not know that that child is a Genius!"

In Fraulein's voice, as she said the word "genius," was awe and homage, service and genuflexion. Nancy sat down, and looked at the little piece of rosin stuck on its green cloth on the sofa. "A Genius!" The word and the awestruck tone brought a recollection to her mind. Years ago, when she had stepped into the dazzling light of her first success, and all the poets of Italy had come to congratulate and to flatter, One had not come. He was the great and sombre singer of revolt, the Pagan poet of modern Rome. He was the Genius, denounced, anathematized and exalted in turn by the hot-headed youth of Italy. He lived apart from the world, aloof from the clamour made around his name, shunning both laudators and detractors, impa.s.sive alike to invective and acclamation. To him, with his curt permission, Nancy herself had gone. A disciple and apostle of his, long-bearded and short of words, had come to conduct her to the Poet's house in Bologna. It was an old house on the broad, ancient ramparts of the city, where an armed sentinel marched, gun on shoulder, up and down. Nancy remembered that she had laughed, and said frivolously: "I suppose the Poet has the soldier on guard to prevent his ideas being stolen." The apostle had not smiled. Then she had entered the house alone, for the apostle was not invited.

The Spirit of Silence was on the cold stone staircase. The door had been opened by a pale-faced, stupid-looking servant, whose only mission in life seemed to be not to make a noise. Three hushed figures, the daughters of the Poet, had bidden her in a half-whisper to sit down.

They all had a look about them as if they lived with something that devoured them day by day. And they looked as if they liked it. They lived to see that the Genius was not disturbed. Then the Genius had entered the room--a fierce and sombre-looking man of sixty, with a leonine head and impatient eyes. And she, seeing him, understood that one should be willing to tiptoe through life with subdued gesture and hushed voice, so that he were not disturbed. She understood that he had the right to devour.

He carried her little book in his hand, and spoke in brief, gruff tones.

"Three women," he said, his flas.h.i.+ng eyes looking her up and down as if he were angry with her, "have been poets: Sappho, Desbordes Valmore, Elizabeth Browning. And now--you. Go and work."

That was all. But it had been enough to send Nancy away dazed with happiness. The Devoured Ones had opened the door for her, and silently shown her out; and as she went tremblingly down the steps she had heard a heavy tread above her, and had stopped to look back. He had come out on to the landing, and was looking after her. She stood still, with a beating heart. And he had spoken again. Three words: "Aspetto e confido--I wait and trust."

She had replied, "Grazie," and then had gone running down the stairs, trembling and stumbling, knowing that his eyes were upon her.

"_Aspetto e confido_." He had waited and trusted in vain. She had never written another book. And now he would never read what she might write, for he was dead.

Nancy still stared at the little piece of rosin stuck on its dentelated green cloth--stared at it vaguely, unseeing. What? Anne-Marie was a Genius? The little tender, wild-eyed birdling was one of the Devourers?

Yes, already in the _Gartenhaus_ there was the atmosphere of hushed reverence, the att.i.tude of sacrifice and waiting. Fraulein spoke in whispers; Elisabeth and the fox-terrier sat in the dark while the Genius went to sleep. Her violin possessed the table, her bow the armchair, her rosin the sofa. Fraulein had all the amazed stupefaction of one of the Devoured.

"The child is a Genius," she was repeating. "She will be like Wagner.

Only greater."

Then she seemed to awake to the smaller realities of life. "What did the Firm say? When does your book appear? My poor dear, you must be tired!

you must be hungry! But, hus.h.!.+ the child's room is just overhead, so, if you do not mind, I will give you your supper in the back-kitchen.

Anne-Marie, when she is not eating, does not like the sound of plates."

XVIII