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

Cesare, I can’t keep clear of him; and I can’t explain to you why. We are tied together⁠—not by any wish or doing of our own.”

“If you are tied, there is nothing more to say,” Martini answered wearily.

He went away, saying that he was busy, and tramped for hours up and down the muddy streets. The world looked very black to him that evening. One poor ewe-lamb⁠—and this slippery creature had stepped in and stolen it away.

X

Towards the middle of February the Gadfly went to Leghorn. Gemma had introduced him to a young Englishman there, a shipping-agent of liberal views, whom she and her husband had known in England. He had on several occasions performed little services for the Florentine radicals: had lent money to meet an unforeseen emergency, had allowed his business address to be used for the party’s letters, etc.; but always through Gemma’s mediumship, and as a private friend of hers. She was, therefore, according to party etiquette, free to make use of the connection in any way that might seem good to her. Whether any use could be got out of it was quite another question. To ask a friendly sympathizer to lend his address for letters from Sicily or to keep a few documents in a corner of his countinghouse safe was one thing; to ask him to smuggle over a transport of firearms for an insurrection was another; and she had very little hope of his consenting.

“You can but try,” she had said to the Gadfly; “but I don’t think anything will come of it. If you were to go to him with that recommendation and ask for five hundred scudi, I dare say he’d give them to you at once⁠—he’s exceedingly generous⁠—and perhaps at a pinch he would lend you his passport or hide a fugitive in his cellar; but if you mention such a thing as rifles he will stare at you and think we’re both demented.”

“Perhaps he may give me a few hints, though, or introduce me to a friendly sailor or two,” the Gadfly had answered. “Anyway, it’s worth while to try.”

One day at the end of the month he came into her study less carefully dressed than usual, and she saw at once from his face that he had good news to tell.

“Ah, at last! I was beginning to think something must have happened to you!”

“I thought it safer not to write, and I couldn’t get back sooner.”

“You have just arrived?”

“Yes; I am straight from the diligence; I looked in to tell you that the affair is all settled.”

“Do you mean that Bailey has really consented to help?”

“More than to help; he has undertaken the whole thing⁠—packing, transports⁠—everything. The rifles will be hidden in bales of merchandise and will come straight through from England. His partner, Williams, who is a great friend of his, has consented to see the transport off from Southampton, and Bailey will slip it through the custom house at Leghorn. That is why I have been such a long time; Williams was just starting for Southampton, and I went with him as far as Genoa.”

“To talk over details on the way?”

“Yes, as long as I wasn’t too seasick to talk about anything.”

“Are you a bad sailor?” she asked quickly, remembering how Arthur had suffered from seasickness one day when her father had taken them both for a pleasure-trip.

“About as bad as is possible, in spite of having been at sea so much. But we had a talk while they were loading at Genoa. You know Williams, I think? He’s a thoroughly good fellow, trustworthy and sensible; so is Bailey, for that matter; and they both know how to hold their tongues.”

“It seems to me, though, that Bailey is running a serious risk in doing a thing like this.”

“So I told him, and he only looked sulky and said: ‘What business is that of yours?’ Just the sort of thing one would expect him to say. If I met Bailey in Timbuktu, I should go up to him and say: ‘Good morning, Englishman.’ ”

“But I can’t conceive how you managed to get their consent; Williams, too; the last man I should have thought of.”

“Yes, he objected strongly at first; not on the ground of danger, though, but because the thing is ‘so unbusiness-like.’ But I managed to win him over after a bit. And now we will go into details.”

When the Gadfly reached his lodgings the sun had set, and the blossoming Pyrus japonica that hung over the garden wall looked dark in the fading light. He gathered a few sprays and carried them into the house. As he opened the study door, Zita started up from a chair in the corner and ran towards him.

“Oh, Felice; I thought you were never coming!”

His first impulse was to ask her sharply what business she had in his study; but, remembering that he had not seen her for three weeks, he held out his hand and said, rather frigidly:

“Good evening, Zita; how are you?”

She put up her face to be kissed, but he moved past as though he had not seen the gesture, and took up a vase to put the pyrus in. The next instant the door was flung wide open, and the collie, rushing into the room, performed an ecstatic dance round him, barking and whining with delight. He put down the flowers and stooped to pat the dog.

“Well, Shaitan, how are you, old man? Yes, it’s really I. Shake hands, like a good dog!”

The hard, sullen look came into Zita’s face.

“Shall we go to dinner?” she asked coldly. “I ordered it for you at my place, as you wrote that you were coming this evening.”

He turned round quickly.

“I am v-v-very sorry; you sh-should not have waited for me! I will just get a bit tidy and come round at once. P-perhaps you would not mind putting these into water.”

When he came into Zita’s dining room she was standing before a mirror,