The Marriage of William Ashe Part 57

"Kitty!--put it down!"

"Lady Kitty!" cried the Dean, in dismay, while all behind him held their breath.

"Stand back!" said Kitty, "or I shall drop it!" She held up the lamp, straight and steady. Ashe paused--in an agony of doubt what to do, his whole soul concentrated on the slender arm and on the brightly burning lamp.

"If you make me speeches," said Kitty, "I must reply, mustn't I? (Keep back, William!--I'm all right.) Hebe thanks you, please--_mille fois_!

She herself hasn't been happy--and she's afraid she hasn't been good!

_N'importe!_ It's all done--and finished. The play's over!--and the lights go out!"

She waved the lamp above her head.

"Kitty! for G.o.d's sake!" cried Ashe, rus.h.i.+ng to her.

"She is mad!" said Lord Parham, standing at the back. "I always knew it!"

The other spectators pa.s.sed through a second of anguish. The bright figure on the pedestal wavered; one moment, and it seemed as though the lamp must descend cras.h.i.+ng upon the head and neck and the white dress beneath it; the next, it had fallen from Kitty's hand--fallen away from her--wide and safe--into the depths of the garden below. A flash of wild light rose from the burning oil and from the dry shrubs amid which it fell. Kitty, meanwhile, swayed--and dropped--heavily--unconscious--into William Ashe's arms.

Kitty barely recovered life and sense during the night that followed.

And while she was still unconscious her boy pa.s.sed away. The poor babe, all ignorant of the straits in which his mother lay, was seized with convulsions in the dawn, and gave up his frail life gathered to his father's breast.

Some ten weeks later, towards the end of October, society knew that the Home Secretary and Lady Kitty had started for Italy--bound first of all for Venice. It was said that Lady Kitty was a wreck, and that it was doubtful whether she would ever recover the sudden and tragic death of her only child.

PART IV

STORM

"Myself, arch-traitor to myself; My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe, My clog whatever road I go."

XVII

"'Among the numerous daubs with which Tintoret, to his everlasting shame, has covered this church--'"

"Good Heavens!--what does the man mean?--or is he talking of another church?" said Ashe, raising his head and looking in bewilderment, first at the magnificent Tintoret in front of him, and then at the lines he had just been reading.

"William!" cried Kitty, "_do_ put that fool down and come here; one sees it splendidly!"

She was standing in one of the choir-stalls of San Giorgio Maggiore, somewhat raised above the point where Ashe had been studying his German hand-book.

"My dear, if this man doesn't know, who does!" cried Ashe, flouris.h.i.+ng his volume in front of him as he obeyed her.

"'Dans le royaume des aveugles,'" said Kitty, contemptuously. "As if any German could even begin to understand Tintoret! But--don't talk!"

And clasping both hands round Ashe's arm, she stood leaning heavily upon him, her whole soul gazing from the eyes she turned upon the picture, her lips quivering, as though, from some physical weakness, she could only just hold back the tears with which, indeed, the face was charged.

She and Ashe were looking at that "Last Supper" of Tintoret's which hangs in the choir of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice.

It is a picture dear to all lovers of Tintoret, breathing in every line and group the pa.s.sionate and mystical fancy of the master.

The scene pa.s.ses, it will be remembered, in what seems to be the s.p.a.cious guest-chamber of an inn. The Lord and His disciples are gathered round the last sacred meal of the Old Covenant, the first of the New. On the left, a long table stretches from the spectator into the depths of the picture; the disciples are ranged along one side of it; and on the other sits Judas, solitary and accursed. The young Christ has risen; He holds the bread in His lifted hands and is about to give it to the beloved disciple, while Peter beyond, rising from his seat in his eagerness, presses forward to claim his own part in the Lord's body.

The action of the Christ has in it a very ecstasy of giving; the bending form, indeed, is love itself, yearning and triumphant. This is further expressed in the light which streams from the head of the Lord, playing upon the long line of faces, illuminating the vehement gesture of Peter, the adoring and radiant silence of St. John--and striking even to the farthest corners of the room, upon a woman, a child, a playing dog.

Meanwhile, from the hanging lamps above the supper-party there glows another and more earthly light, mingled with fumes of smoke which darken the upper air. But such is the power of the divine figure that from this very darkness breaks adoration. The smoke-wreaths change under the gazer's eye into hovering angels, who float round the head of the Saviour, and look down with awe upon the first Eucharist; while the lamp-light, interpenetrated by the glory which issues from the Lord, searches every face and fold and surface, displays the figures of the serving men and women in the background, s.h.i.+nes on the household stuff, the vases and plates, the black and white of the marble floor, the beams of the old Venetian ceiling. Everywhere the double ray, the two-fold magic! Steeped in these "majesties of light," the immortal scene lives upon the quiet wall. Year after year the slender, thought-worn Christ raises His hands of blessing; the disciples strain towards Him; the angels issue from the darkness; the friendly domestic life, happy, natural, unconscious, frames the divine mystery. And among those who come to look there are, from time to time, men and women who draw from it that restlessness of vague emotion which Kitty felt as she hung now, gazing, on Ashe's arm.

For there is in it an appeal which torments them--like the winding of a mystic horn, on purple heights, by some approaching and unseen messenger. Ineffable beauty, offering itself--and in the human soul, the eternal human discord: what else makes the poignancy of art--the pa.s.sion of poetry?

"That's enough!" said Kitty, at last, turning abruptly away.

"You like it?" said Ashe, softly, detaining her, while he pressed the little hand upon his arm. His heart was filled with a great pity for his wife in these days.

"Oh, I don't know!" was Kitty's impatient reply.

"It haunts me. There's still another to see--in a chapel. The sacristan's making signs to us."

"Is there?" Ashe stifled a yawn. He asked Margaret French, who had come up with them, whether Kitty had not had quite enough sight-seeing. He himself must go to the Piazza, and get the news before dinner. As an English cabinet minister, he had been admitted to the best club of the Venice residents. Telegrams were to be seen there; and there was anxious news from the Balkans.

Kitty merely insisted that she could not and would not go without her remaining Tintoret, and the others yielded to her at once, with that indulgent tenderness one shows to the wilfulness of a sick child. She and Margaret followed the sacristan. Ashe lingered behind in a pa.s.sage of the church, surrept.i.tiously reading an Italian newspaper. He had the ordinary cultivated pleasure in pictures; but this ardor which Kitty was throwing into her pursuit of Tintoret--the Wagner of painting--left him cold. He did not attempt to keep up with her.

Two ladies were already in the cloister chapel, with a gentleman. As Kitty and her friend entered, these persons had just finished their inspection of the damaged but most beautiful "Pieta" which hangs over the altar, and their faces were towards the entrance.

"Maman!" cried Kitty, in amazement.

The lady addressed started, put up a gold-rimmed eye-gla.s.s, exclaimed, and hurried forward.

Kitty and she embraced, amid a torrent of laughter and interjections from the elder lady, and then Kitty, whose pale cheeks had put on scarlet, turned to Margaret French.

"Margaret!--my mother, Madame d'Estrees."

Miss French, who found herself greeted with effusion by the strange lady, saw before her a woman of fifty, marvellously preserved. Madame d'Estrees had grown stout; so much time had claimed; but the elegant gray dress with its floating chiffon and lace skilfully concealed the fact; and for the rest, complexion, eyes, lips were still defiant of the years. If it were art that had achieved it, nature still took the credit; it was so finely done, the spectator could only lend himself and admire. Under the pretty hat of gray tulle, whereof the strings were tied bonnet-fas.h.i.+on under the plump chin, there looked out, indeed, a face gay, happy, unconcerned, proof one might have thought of an innocent past and a good conscience.

Kitty, who had drawn back a little, eyed her mother oddly.

"I thought you were in Paris. Your letter said you wouldn't be able to move for weeks--"

"_Ma chere!_--_un miracle!_" cried Madame d'Estrees, blus.h.i.+ng, however, under her thin white veil. "When I wrote to you, I was at death's door--wasn't I?" She appealed to her companion, without waiting for an answer. "Then some one told me of a new doctor, and in ten days, _me voici_! They insisted on my going away--this dear woman--Donna Laura Vercelli--my daughter, Lady Kitty Ashe!--knew of an apartment here belonging to some relations of hers. And here we are--charmingly _installees_!--and really _nothing_ to pay!"--Madame d'Estrees whispered, smiling, in Kitty's ear--"nothing, compared to the hotels.

I'm economizing splendidly. Laura looks after every sou. Ah! my dear William!"

For Ashe, puzzled by the voices within, had entered the chapel, and stood in his turn, open-mouthed.