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

what sort of man are you, that you can’t even kiss a handsome girl when she puts her arms round your neck?”

“You said,” he interrupted, “that you had brought me a message from her.”

“Yes; I stopped behind when the camp went on, so as to give it. She told me to say that she has had enough of your folk and their hairsplitting and their sluggish blood; and that she wants to get back to her own people and be free. ‘Tell him,’ she said, ‘that I am a woman, and that I loved him; and that is why I would not be his harlot any longer.’ The lassie was right to come away. There’s no harm in a girl getting a bit of money out of her good looks if she can⁠—that’s what good looks are for; but a Romany lass has nothing to do with loving a man of your race.”

The Gadfly stood up.

“Is that all the message?” he said. “Then tell her, please, that I think she has done right, and that I hope she will be happy. That is all I have to say. Good night!”

He stood perfectly still until the garden gate closed behind her; then he sat down and covered his face with both hands.

Another blow on the cheek! Was no rag of pride to be left him⁠—no shred of self-respect? Surely he had suffered everything that man can endure; his very heart had been dragged in the mud and trampled under the feet of the passersby; there was no spot in his soul where someone’s contempt was not branded in, where someone’s mockery had not left its iron trace. And now this gipsy girl, whom he had picked up by the wayside⁠—even she had the whip in her hand.

Shaitan whined at the door, and the Gadfly rose to let him in. The dog rushed up to his master with his usual frantic manifestations of delight, but soon, understanding that something was wrong, lay down on the rug beside him, and thrust a cold nose into the listless hand.

An hour later Gemma came up to the front door. No one appeared in answer to her knock; Bianca, finding that the Gadfly did not want any dinner, had slipped out to visit a neighbour’s cook. She had left the door open, and a light burning in the hall. Gemma, after waiting for some time, decided to enter and try if she could find the Gadfly, as she wished to speak to him about an important message which had come from Bailey. She knocked at the study door, and the Gadfly’s voice answered from within: “You can go away, Bianca. I don’t want anything.”

She softly opened the door. The room was quite dark, but the passage lamp threw a long stream of light across it as she entered, and she saw the Gadfly sitting alone, his head sunk on his breast, and the dog asleep at his feet.

“It is I,” she said.

He started up. “Gemma⁠—Gemma! Oh, I have wanted you so!”

Before she could speak he was kneeling on the floor at her feet and hiding his face in the folds of her dress. His whole body was shaken with a convulsive tremor that was worse to see than tears.

She stood still. There was nothing she could do to help him⁠—nothing. This was the bitterest thing of all. She must stand by and look on passively⁠—she who would have died to spare him pain. Could she but dare to stoop and clasp her arms about him, to hold him close against her heart and shield him, were it with her own body, from all further harm or wrong; surely then he would be Arthur to her again; surely then the day would break and the shadows flee away.

Ah, no, no! How could he ever forget? Was it not she who had cast him into hell⁠—she, with her own right hand?

She had let the moment slip by. He rose hastily and sat down by the table, covering his eyes with one hand and biting his lip as if he would bite it through.

Presently he looked up and said quietly:

“I am afraid I startled you.”

She held out both her hands to him. “Dear,” she said, “are we not friends enough by now for you to trust me a little bit? What is it?”

“Only a private trouble of my own. I don’t see why you should be worried over it.”

“Listen a moment,” she went on, taking his hand in both of hers to steady its convulsive trembling. “I have not tried to lay hands on a thing that is not mine to touch. But now that you have given me, of your own free will, so much of your confidence, will you not give me a little more⁠—as you would do if I were your sister. Keep the mask on your face, if it is any consolation to you, but don’t wear a mask on your soul, for your own sake.”

He bent his head lower. “You must be patient with me,” he said. “I am an unsatisfactory sort of brother to have, I’m afraid; but if you only knew⁠—I have been nearly mad this last week. It has been like South America again. And somehow the devil gets into me and⁠—” He broke off.

“May I not have my share in your trouble?” she whispered at last.

His head sank down on her arm. “The hand of the Lord is heavy.”

Part III I

The next five weeks were spent by Gemma and the Gadfly in a whirl of excitement and overwork which left them little time or energy for thinking about their personal affairs. When the arms had been safely smuggled into Papal territory there remained a still more difficult and dangerous task: that of conveying them unobserved from the secret stores in the mountain caverns and ravines to the various local centres and thence to the separate villages. The whole district was swarming