A Rent In A Cloud Part 19

Without well knowing how, he found himself at the door of the Gettone, the h.e.l.l he had visited when he was last at Milan.

"They shall sup me, at all events," said he, as he deposited his hat and cane in the ante-chamber. The rooms were crowded and it was some time before Calvert could approach the play-table, and gain a view of the company. He recognised many of the former visitors. There sat the pretty woman with the blonde ringlets, her diamond-studded fingers carelessly playing with the gold pieces before her; there was the pale student-like boy--he seemed a mere boy--with his dress-cravat disordered, and his hair dishevelled, just as he had seen him last; and there was the old man, whose rouleau had cost Calvert all his winnings. He looked fatigued and exhausted, and seemed as if dropping asleep over his game, and yet the noise was deafening--the clamour of the players, the cries of the croupier, the clink of gla.s.ses, and the clink of gold!

"Now to test the adage that says when a man is pelted by all other ill luck, that he'll win at play," said Calvert, as he threw, without counting them, several Napoleons on the table. His venture was successful, and so was another and another after it.

"This is yours, Sir," said she of the blonde ringlets,' handing him a hundred franc-piece that had rolled amongst her own.

"Was it not to suggest a partners.h.i.+p that it went there?" said he, smiling courteously.

"Who knows?" said she, half carelessly, half invitingly.

"Let us see what our united fortunes will do. This old man is dozing and does not care for the game. Would you favour me with your place, Sir, and take your rest with so much more comfort, on one of those luxurious sofas yonder?"

"No!" said the old man, sternly. "I have as much right to be here as you."

"The legal right I am not going to dispute. It is simply a matter of expediency."

"Do you mean to stake all that gold, Sir?" interrupted the croupier, addressing Calvert, who, during this brief discussion, had suffered his money to remain till it had been doubled twice over.

"Ay, let it stay there," said he, carelessly.

"What have you done that makes you so lucky?" whispered the blonde ringlets. "See, you have broken the bank!"

"What have I done, do you mean in the way of wickedness?" said he, laughing as the croupiers gathered in a knot to count over the sum to be paid to him. "Nearly everything. I give you leave to question me--so far as your knowledge of the Decalogue goes--what have I not done?" And so they sauntered down the room side by side and sat down on a sofa, chatting and laughing pleasantly together, till the croupier came loaded with gold and notes to pay all Calvert's winnings.

"What was it the old fellow muttered as he pa.s.sed?" said Calvert; "he spoke in German, and I didn't understand him."

"It was something about a line in your forehead that will bring you bad luck yet."

"I have heard that before," cried he, springing hastily up. "I wish I could get him to tell me more;" and he hastened down the stairs after the old man, but when he gained the street he missed him; he hurried in vain on this side and that; no trace of him remained. "If I were given to the credulous, I'd say that was the fiend in person," muttered Calvert, as he slowly turned towards his inn.

He tried in many ways to forget the speech that troubled him; he counted over his winnings; they were nigh fourteen thousand francs; he speculated on all he might do with them; he plotted and planned a dozen roads to take, but do what he might, the old man's sinister look and dark words were before him, and he could only lie awake thinking over them till day broke.

Determined to return to Orta in time to meet the post, he drove to the bank, just as it was open for business, and presented his bill for payment.

"You have to sign your name here," said a voice he thought he remembered, and, looking up, saw the old man of the play-table.

"Did we not meet last night?" whispered Calvert, in a low voice.

The other shook his head in dissent.

"Yes, I cannot be mistaken; you muttered a prediction in German as you pa.s.sed me, and I know what it meant."

Another shake of the head was all his reply.

"Come, come, be frank with me; your secret, if it be one to visit that place, is safe with me. What leads you to believe I am destined to evil fortune?"

"I know nothing of you! I want _to_ know nothing," said the old man, rudely, and turned to his books.

"Well, if your skill in prophecy be not greater than in politeness, I need not fret about you," said Calvert laughing; and he went his way.

With that superst.i.tious terror that tyrannises over the minds of incredulous men weighing heavily on his heart, he drove back to Orta.

All his winnings of the night before could not erase from lus memory the dark words of the old man's prediction. He tried to forget, and then he tried to ridicule it "So easy," thought he, "for that old withered mummy to cast a shadow on the path of a fellow full of life, vigour, and energy, like myself. He has but to stand one second in my suns.h.i.+ne! It is, besides, the compensation that age and decrepitude exact for being no longer available for the triumphs and pleasures of life." Such were the sort of reasonings by which he sought to console himself, and then he set to plan out a future--all the things that he could, or might, or could not do.

Just as he drove into Orta the post arrived at the office, and he got out and entered, as was his wont, to obtain his letters before the public distribution had commenced.

CHAPTER XIV. THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN.

THE only letter Calvert found at the post-office for the villa was one in the vicar's hand, addressed to Miss Grainger. Nothing from Loyd himself, nor any newspaper. So far, then, Loyd had kept his pledge. He awaited to see if Calvert would obey his injunctions before he proceeded to unmask him to his friends.

Calvert did not regard this reserve as anything generous--he set it down simply to fear. He said to himself, "The fellow dreads me; he knows that it is never safe to push men of my stamp to the wall; and he is wise enough to apply the old adage, about leaving a bridge to the retreating enemy. I shall have more difficulty in silencing the women, however. It will be a hard task to muzzle their curiosity; but I must try some plan to effect it. Is that telegram for me?" cried he, as a messenger hastened hither and thither in search for some one.

"II Signor Grainger?"

"Yes, all right," said he, taking it. It was in these few words.

"They find it can be done--make tracks.

"Drayton"

"They find it can be done," muttered he. "Which means it is legal to apprehend me. Well, I supposed as much. I never reckoned on immunity; and as to getting away, I'm readier for it, and better provided too, than you think for, Master Algernon. Indeed, I can't well say what infatuation binds me to this spot, apart from the peril that attends it.

I don't know that I am very much what is called in love with Florence, though I'd certainly marry her if she'd have me; but for that there are, what the lady novelists call, 'mixed motives,' and I rather suspect it is not with any especial or exclusive regard for her happiness that I'd enter into the holy bonds. I should like to consult some competent authority on the physiology of hatred--why it is that, though scores of fellows have injured me deeply in life, I never bore any, no, nor the whole of them collectively, the ill will that I feel for that man.

He has taken towards me a tone that none have ever dared to take. He menaces me! Fifty have wronged, none have ever threatened me. He who threatens, a.s.sumes to be your master, to dictate the terms of his forbearance, and to declare under what conditions he will spare you.

Now, Master Loyd, I can't say if this be a part to suit _your_ powers, but I know well, the other is one which in no way is adapted to _mine_.

Nature has endowed me with a variety of excellent qualities, but, somehow, in the hurry of her benevolence, she forgot patience! I suppose one can't have everything!"

While he thus mused and speculated, the boat swept smoothly over the lake, and Onofrio, not remarking the little attention Calvert vouchsafed to him, went on talking of "I Grangeri" as the most interesting subject he could think of. At last Calvert's notice was drawn to his words by hearing how the old lady had agreed to take the villa for a year, with the power of continuing to reside there longer if she were so minded.

The compact had been made only the day before, after Calvert had started for Milan, evidently--to his thinking--showing that it had been done with reference to something in Loyd's last letter. "Strange that she did not consult me upon it," thought he; "I who have been her chief counsellor on everything. Perhaps the lease of my confidence has expired. But how does it matter? A few hours more, and all these people shall be no more to me than the lazy cloud that is hanging about the mountain-top. They may live or die, or marry or mourn, and all be as nothing to me--as if I had never met them. And what shall _I_ be to _them_, I wonder?" cried he, with a bitter laugh; "a very dreadful dream, I suppose; something like the memory of a s.h.i.+pwreck, or a fire from which they escaped without any consciousness of the means that rescued them! A horrid nightmare whose terrors always come back in days of depression and illness. At all events, I shall not be 'poor Calvert,'

'that much to be pitied creature, who really had some good in him.' No, I shall certainly be spared all commiseration of that kind, and they'll no more recur willingly to my memory than they'll celebrate the anniversary of some day that brought them shame and misfortune.

"Now then, for my positively last appearance in my present line of character! And yonder I see the old dame on the look-out for me; she certainly has some object in meeting me before her nieces shall know it--Land me in that nook there, Onofrio, and wait for me."

"I have been very impatient for your coming," said she, as he stepped on sh.o.r.e; "I have so much to say to you; but, first of all, read this. It is from the vicar."

The letter was not more than a few lines, and to this purport: he was about to quit the home he had lived in for more than thirty years, and was so overwhelmed with sorrow and distress, that he really could not address his thoughts to any case but the sad one before him. "'All these calamities have fallen upon us together; for although,' he wrote, 'Joe's departure is the first step on the road to future fortune, it is still separation, and at our age who is to say if we shall ever see him again?'"

"Skip the pathetic bit, and come to this. What have we here about the P.

and O. steamers?" cried Calvert.

"'Through the great kindness of the Secretary of State, Joe has obtained a free pa.s.sage out--a favour as I hear very rarely granted--and he means to pay you a flying visit; leaving this on Tuesday, to be with you on Sat.u.r.day, and, by repairing to Leghorn on the following Wednesday, to catch the packet at Malta. This will give him three entire days with you, which, though they be stolen from us, neither his mother nor myself have the heart to refuse him. Poor fellow, he tries to believe--perhaps he does believe--that we are all to meet again in happiness and comfort, and I do my best not to discourage him; but I am now verging on seventy--'"

"How tiresome he is about his old age; is there any more about his son?"

asked Calvert impatiently.