The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
the question.
So months went by. I was ordered to take the car back to England, and then went to Germany and to France. Only once Whitaker wrote to me. Florence, he declared, was very dull now I had left.
A coup had been made in Biarritz,—a little matter of a few sparklers,—and Bindo and I found ourselves living, early in January, at the Villa Igiea, at Palermo.
As I sat alone, smoking and gazing out upon the blue bay, with the distant mountains purple in the calm sundown, the quick frou-frou of silken skirts passed close by me, and a tall, slender girl, very elegantly dressed, went forth alone into the beautiful gardens that slope down to the sea. I noted her neat figure, her gait, the red-gold tint of her hair, and the peculiar manner in which she carried her left hand when walking.
Could it be Vivi? I sat up, staring after her in wonder. Her figure was perfect, her elegant cream gown was evidently the “creation” of one of the man-milliners of the Rue de la Paix, and I noticed that the women sitting around had turned and were admiring her for her general chic.
She turned into the gardens ere I could catch a glimpse of her face, and I sat back again, laughing at my own foolishness. Somehow, during the past three years, I had fancied I saw her a dozen times—in London, in Rome, in Paris, in Nice, and elsewhere. But I had always, alas! discovered it to be an illusion. The figure of this girl in cream merely resembled hers, that was all. I tried to convince myself of it, and yet I was unable to do so. Why, I cannot tell, but I had been seized with a keen desire to see her face. I half rose, but sat back again, ridiculing my own thoughts. And so five minutes passed, until, unable to resist longer, I rose, went forth into the gardens, and wandered among the palms in search of her.
At last I found her standing by a low wall, her face turned towards the sea. Alone, she had paused in her walk, and with her eyes turned across the bay she was in a deep reverie. Then, as she heard my footstep, she turned and faced me.
“Vivi!” I cried, rushing toward her.
“You!—George!” she gasped, starting back in sudden amazement.
“Yes,” I said madly. “At last, after all this long time, I have found you!”
She held her breath. Her beautiful countenance changed, her sweet mouth hardened; I fancied I saw tears welling in her great blue eyes that were so fathomless.
“I—I did not dream that you were here, or I would never have come,” she faltered. “Never!”
“Because you still wish to avoid me—eh? Your memory still remains to me—but, alas! only a memory,” I said sadly, taking her hand again and holding it firmly within my own. “I am only a chauffeur.”
Our eyes met. She looked at me long and steadily. Her chest rose and fell, and she turned her gaze from me, away to the purple mountains across the bay.
“Let me still remain only a memory,” she answered in a low, strained voice. “It is as painful to me to meet you—as to you.”
“But why? Tell me why?” I demanded, raising her soft hand again to my lips. “Do you remember that day on the Ripley road—the day when we parted?”
She nodded, and her chest rose and fell again, stirred by her own deep emotions.
“You would give me no reason for your sudden decision.”
“And I still can give you none.”
“But why?”
She was silent, standing there with the brilliant Southern afterglow falling full upon her beautiful face. Behind her was a background of feathery palms, and we were alone.
I still held her hand, though she endeavoured to withdraw it.
“Ah!” I cried, “you always withhold your reason from me. I am not rich like other men who admire and flatter you, yet I tell you—ah yes, I swear to you—that only you do I love. Ever since you came fresh from your school in Germany I admired you. Do you remember how many times you sat at my side on the old Panhard? Surely you must have known that? Surely you must have guessed the reason why I always preferred you in the front seat?”
“Yes—yes!” she faltered, interrupting me. “I know. I loved you, but I was foolish—very foolish.”
“Why foolish?”
She made no reply, but burst suddenly into tears.
Tenderly I placed my arm about her waist. What could I do, save to try and comfort her? In the three years that had passed she had grown into womanhood, and yet she still preserved that sweet girlishness that, in these go-ahead days, is so refreshing and attractive in a woman in her early twenties.
In those calm moments in the glorious Sicilian sundown I recollected those days when at seventeen she had admitted her love for me, and we were happy. Visions of that blissful past arose before me—and then the crushing blow I had received prior to our parting.
“Vivi, tell me,” I whispered at last, “why do you still hold aloof from me?”
“Because I—I must.”
“But why? You surely are now your own mistress?”
Her eyes were fixed upon me again very gravely for some moments in silence. Then she answered in a low voice—
“But I can never marry you. It is impossible.”
“No, I know. There is such a wide difference in our stations,” I said regretfully.
“No, it is not that. The reason is one that is my own secret,” was her answer, as she drew her breath and her little hands clenched themselves.
“May I not know it?”
“No—never. It—well, it concerns myself alone.”
“But you still love me, Vivi? You still think of me?” I cried.
“Occasionally.”
And then she turned away in the direction of the hotel.
I followed, and grasping her by the hand, repeated my question.
“My secret is my own,” was all the satisfaction she would give me.
And I was forced at last to allow her to walk back to the hotel, and to follow her alone.
What was the nature of her secret?
If ever a man’s heart sank to the depths of despair mine sank at that moment. She had been all the world to me, and, cosmopolitan adventurer that I had now become, I met a thousand bright-eyed chic and attractive women, yet I revered her memory as the one woman who was pure and perfect.
I watched her disappear into the green-carpeted hotel-lounge, where an orchestra of mandolinists were playing an air from La Bohème. Then I turned away, full of my own sad thoughts, and strolled in the falling twilight beside the grey sea.
Just before dinner, after re-entering the hotel, I wrote a note and gave it to the hall-porter to send to the Signorina.
“The Signorina and the Signora have left, Signore. They went down to the boat for Naples half an hour ago.”
I tore up the note, and next day left Palermo.
Next night I was in Naples, but could find no trace of them. So I went on to Rome, where I was equally unsuccessful. From the Eternal City I took the express to Calais, and on to London, where I learnt that the Viscount her father had died six months before, and that she was travelling on the Continent with her aunt.
Nearly a year passed without any news of my love.
I spent the spring at Monte Carlo, and in May, the month of flowers, found myself back at Bindo’s old villa in Florence, gloomy to me on account of my own loneliness. The two English dogs barked me welcome, and Charlie Whitaker that night came and dined; for Bindo was away.
After dinner we sat in the long wicker chairs out in the garden beneath the palms, taking our coffee