The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

of riches, nor the lifeless aspect of everything. Even the flowers on the brass stands looked like painted metal flowers that had never known the stirring of young sap within them in the warm spring days. Julia, dressed for dinner, and waiting for visitors in the drawing room which was to her the centre of existence, might have sat for a fashion-plate just as she was, with her wooden smile and flaxen ringlets, and the lapdog on her knee.

“How do you do, Arthur?” she said stiffly, giving him the tips of her fingers for a moment, and then transferring them to the more congenial contact of the lapdog’s silken coat. “I hope you are quite well and have made satisfactory progress at college.”

Arthur murmured the first commonplace that he could think of at the moment, and relapsed into uncomfortable silence. The arrival of James, in his most pompous mood and accompanied by a stiff, elderly shipping-agent, did not improve matters; and when Gibbons announced that dinner was served, Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.

“I won’t come to dinner, Julia. If you’ll excuse me I will go to my room.”

“You’re overdoing that fasting, my boy,” said Thomas; “I am sure you’ll make yourself ill.”

“Oh, no! Good night.”

In the corridor Arthur met the under housemaid and asked her to knock at his door at six in the morning.

“The signorino is going to church?”

“Yes. Good night, Teresa.”

He went into his room. It had belonged to his mother, and the alcove opposite the window had been fitted up during her long illness as an oratory. A great crucifix on a black pedestal occupied the middle of the altar; and before it hung a little Roman lamp. This was the room where she had died. Her portrait was on the wall beside the bed; and on the table stood a china bowl which had been hers, filled with a great bunch of her favourite violets. It was just a year since her death; and the Italian servants had not forgotten her.

He took out of his portmanteau a framed picture, carefully wrapped up. It was a crayon portrait of Montanelli, which had come from Rome only a few days before. He was unwrapping this precious treasure when Julia’s page brought in a supper-tray on which the old Italian cook, who had served Gladys before the harsh, new mistress came, had placed such little delicacies as she considered her dear signorino might permit himself to eat without infringing the rules of the Church. Arthur refused everything but a piece of bread; and the page, a nephew of Gibbons, lately arrived from England, grinned significantly as he carried out the tray. He had already joined the Protestant camp in the servants’ hall.

Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down before the crucifix, trying to compose his mind to the proper attitude for prayer and meditation. But this he found difficult to accomplish. He had, as Thomas said, rather overdone the Lenten privations, and they had gone to his head like strong wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his back, and the crucifix swam in a misty cloud before his eyes. It was only after a long litany, mechanically repeated, that he succeeded in recalling his wandering imagination to the mystery of the Atonement. At last sheer physical weariness conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and he lay down to sleep in a calm and peaceful mood, free from all unquiet or disturbing thoughts.

He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient knock came at his door. “Ah, Teresa!” he thought, turning over lazily. The knock was repeated, and he awoke with a violent start.

“Signorino! signorino!” cried a man’s voice in Italian; “get up for the love of God!”

Arthur jumped out of bed.

“What is the matter? Who is it?”

“It’s I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our Lady’s sake!”

Arthur hurriedly dressed and opened the door. As he stared in perplexity at the coachman’s pale, terrified face, the sound of tramping feet and clanking metal came along the corridor, and he suddenly realized the truth.

“For me?” he asked coolly.

“For you! Oh, signorino, make haste! What have you to hide? See, I can put⁠—”

“I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers know?”

The first uniform appeared at the turn of the passage.

“The signor has been called; all the house is awake. Alas! what a misfortune⁠—what a terrible misfortune! And on Good Friday! Holy Saints, have pity!”

Gian Battista burst into tears. Arthur moved a few steps forward and waited for the gendarmes, who came clattering along, followed by a shivering crowd of servants in various impromptu costumes. As the soldiers surrounded Arthur, the master and mistress of the house brought up the rear of this strange procession; he in dressing gown and slippers, she in a long peignoir, with her hair in curlpapers.

“There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts!”

The quotation flashed across Arthur’s mind as he looked at the grotesque figures. He checked a laugh with a sense of its jarring incongruity⁠—this was a time for worthier thoughts. “Ave Maria, Regina Coeli!” he whispered, and turned his eyes away, that the bobbing of Julia’s curlpapers might not again tempt him to levity.

“Kindly explain to me,” said Mr. Burton, approaching the officer of gendarmerie, “what is the meaning of this violent intrusion into a private house? I warn you that, unless you are prepared to furnish me with a satisfactory explanation, I shall feel bound to complain to the English Ambassador.”

“I presume,” replied the officer stiffly, “that you will recognize this as a sufficient explanation; the English Ambassador certainly will.” He pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur Burton, student of philosophy, and, handing it to James, added coldly: “If you wish for any further explanation, you had better apply in person to the chief of police.”

Julia snatched the paper from her husband, glanced over