The Last Call: A Romance (Vol. 3 of 3). Dowling Richard
to leave him in solitude and grief. The afternoon passed away, and it was late in the evening before they decided that Eugene should look him up at his lodgings. Here again the Irishman drew a blank. The Signor had left that day for his country, for England, and would be away for example, a day for every finger-one, two, three, four, five. The Signor had not said why he was going. He had taken nothing whatever with him but his purse, out of which he had given her, the landlady, before the Signor went away, this gold piece, which was over and above the money due to her. He seemed in great grief and spoke to himself, not in Italian, and it seemed to her, who now spoke English somewhat, not in English. It may have been French. It seemed as though he cursed and threatened, for he ground his teeth and shook his fists, thus, and thus, and again in this manner, the last greatly terrifying her, the landlady. And she left the room, fearing he might, without reason, take vengeance on her, who had done nothing. For he seemed as one distraught, as one mad, who might easily strike one who had done no harm. Ah! Was it so? His sweetheart dead! In that far-away country! Then, perhaps, when he recovered from this he would marry Luigia, who had the most wonderful hair in the world, and was so fair, as to seem as though she had come from the place where his, Signor O'Donnell's, wife had come from. Luigia was a good girl, and not like others, and if the Signor did marry her, she would make him a good wife; for having been poor she would know the value of his money. But the poor Signor who had gone away that day was in no humour to think of marriage now. Only of death and the grave. Did Signor O'Donnell know of the sweetheart of the other? Yes. And she was also fair, like the Signora and Luigia? No; dark. Ah, how strange. How incomprehensible. Here in this country they were nearly all dark, and when a fair woman came among them, no dark woman had a chance against her. But if what people said was true, there were the dark and the fair in the place from which the Signora came, and a man could choose, after his liking, the dark or the fair. Yet the poor Signor, who had lost his sweetheart, had chosen, in his own country, a dark woman for a sweetheart, and here, for a sweetheart, a fair woman. He was fickle in love. Had Signor O'Donnell noticed that Luigia had a strong resemblance to the Signora? Luigia was a good girl. God keep her from harm. Eugene came back and told Nellie that Lavirotte had suddenly left for London, without, as far as he knew, saying a word to anyone. According to what his landlady had said, Lavirotte must have gone straight home, and gone from his lodgings to the railway station. What an odd fellow he was, not to say a word, not to take a portmanteau or even hand-bag with him, but dash off across Europe just as they had seen him last. "You know, Nellie," said Eugene, putting his arm round his wife's waist, "I often told you I thought there was a screw loose in Lavirotte, and every day that goes over confirms me more and more in this belief. It is a curious fact that some great-great-grandfather or other had a mania for mania, and wrote a book about something or other connected with the mind. Of late Lavirotte has said a lot to me about the injudiciousness of trusting to a voice for a living. He has told me, what is quite true, that until a voice has been tested on the stage and in front of an audience, no one can tell what it is going to be. It is just like an unacted play. It may be worth five pounds a week, or it may be worth five hundred. Then he has said to me that he thinks his natural bent was towards medicine, and only that he had given up so much time now to the cultivation of his voice, he would certainly, if he had the money, become a doctor. "Eugene," said Nellie, "you have told me something of this before. All this talk about the impossibility of deciding the value of a voice until it is tested in front of an audience, seems to me to have a good deal to do with the fact that people, both here and in England, say your voice is better than his. Whatever may be on the surface of his talk about his voice, I am sure at the bottom of it there is jealousy of yours." "Nonsense, Nellie!" cried Eugene, good-naturedly. "You know what you are saying is absurd. Such jealousy as you speak of is a lost art. As Uncle Toby said to the fly, Lavirotte might say to me: 'Go, go, poor devil! Get thee gone-why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.' How could two men of second or third-rate voices, such as we have, even clash. There are hundreds of towns which want third-class tenors, and once we have taken to the boards there is no more likelihood of our meeting and clashing than of two twenty-fifth-rate comets meeting in space." "He is jealous by nature, Eugene; and he is jealous of you." "If he is jealous of me, darling, it must be in regard to you." He pressed her to him, and kissed her forehead as he spoke. "You may put it what way you will, Eugene, but you are a truer friend to him than he is to you." "God bless my soul!" cried her husband, "how can you say so? Did he not nearly lose his life in trying to get that treasure, with a view to saving our house?" "I suppose I must believe that he believed he would get that money, and so be able to do you a service, but I do not know anything harder to credit." "Why, he not only nearly lost his life, but he certainly injured his health in some way in that unfortunate undertaking at St. Prisca's Tower. The day he got the letter from me about the money for the last call, he fell asleep or fainted in a chair at his lodgings, and he tells me that ever since, his chest now and then feels strange." "According to what your father told us afterwards, it is very wonderful that neither of these men should have known anything about the law. For my part, Eugene, I believe poor old Mr. Crawford was a sincere, half-witted man, and that Lavirotte seemed to adopt the delusion of the old man in order that he might pose as your patron or benefactor, to balance the injury he had done you that dreadful night at the cove." "Nonsense!" cried her husband. "Men do not carry farces so far as to injure their health permanently." "If you were to talk till morning," said she, decisively, "you could not convince me he is not jealous." "Of my voice?" "I don't say of that only." "Of you?" "I don't say that either." "In the name of Heaven, then, what is he jealous of? Of baby?" laughed the husband. "Do you think he is jealous of our having little Mark?" At that moment the door opened, and a young Italian girl entered, carrying the baby. "You needn't be so absurd, Eugene," said the young mother, fondly taking her infant from the girl. "And yet," she added, kissing the child, "anyone might well be jealous of us about you, darling." "Nellie, dear, you have capped the climax of absurdity."
CHAPTER XIV
Before leaving Milan, Lavirotte had telegraphed to London, saying he would be over for the funeral. When he got to London he drove straight to Charterhouse Square. The landlady thought he looked wild, and two or three other sympathetic people who lived in the house said he ought to be looked after. But his words were sane, and he made only one request, which, under the circumstances, was reasonable-namely, that he might be allowed some time in the room alone with her. He went into that silent room where the dead girl lay, and closed the door softly behind him. It was broad daylight, and although Charterhouse Square is, at the busiest time of the day, comparatively quiet for a place in the City, he could hear the great muffled rumble of traffic that overhung the whole place, like a cloud that lay around on all sides, like a soft cushion against which silence beat. He drew down the lid and looked at the dead, the lovely dead. So like, and so absolutely unlike. All was here, and yet nothing. Here was a mask, the pallid mask of his dearest love, his sweetest girl. Here was the sleeping form round which his arms had often clung lovingly, tenderly, hopefully, with joyous anticipation of long years full of happiness, spent by them together. Now all the charm was gone; all the sacredness had departed. There was nothing more worthy of his regard in these still, silent features, than in the wooden box which was to be the mute and viewless partner of their decay. Here was the hair with which he had so often played, the unwrinkled brow which he had so often, with supererogatory fingers, smoothed. The eyes were closed; there was no longer any light in them. The light had gone out for ever. There was here a cessation of light, such as had occurred in that vault when the lantern failed. In those veiled eyes lay the darkness of the tomb, as in that vault, veiled from the light of heaven, had lain the darkness of the nether deep. The lips were closed and bloodless and placid. Those were the lips that he had loved to kiss, that he had hoped to think were his for ever. The sculptor would have seen little change, the painter much, the poet more, the lover all. Nothing was that had been. What had happened to the trustful spirit, quiet laughter, the quick irritability to smiles, the joyous movements of approach, when he was there, the sweet confidence, the gentle voice, the hand that came forth, anxious to be clasped, the yielding form? All, all the qualities, which had in time to him stood as divine expression of a beautiful decree, had passed into nothingness, had left no more behind than the wind leaves on the rock. All that was sweet and pure, guileless and joyous, vital and fresh, had gone away for ever, and left nothing. Why should he call this Dora? It could not hear him. It could not answer him. He might as well throw up his arms and plead his piteous grief into