Nancy raised her reddened eyes. "I am crying," she said brokenly, "because all the—the prettiness has been taken out of everything. Yes, I was poor—yes, I was miserable, and I was inventing things in my letters; but I thought you believed them—and I thought you—you loved me, like Jaufré Rudel. And I have never, never been so happy as when—as when—I loved you across the distance—and you were the Unknown—and now it is all broken and spoilt—and all the time you thought I wanted money—I mean you knew I wanted money, and you had that hideous picture, and"—here Nancy broke into weak, wild sobs—"you thought I looked like that!"
"That's so," said Jaufré Rudel.
And he let her cry for a long time.
Quarto had slipped back into the distance, and San Francesco D'Albaro was moving smoothly into view.
"I can't go on crying for ever," said Nancy, raising her face with a quivering smile, "and the Captain will think you are a huge, horrid, scolding English Ogre."
They were nearly in. "Get your little bag and things," he said to her, and she rose quickly and complied. Everybody was standing up waiting to land. Oh, how good it was to be taken care of and ordered about, to be told to do this and that! She stood behind him small and meek, holding her travelling-bag in one hand, and in the other the umbrellas and sticks strapped together. His large shoulders were before her like a wall. She raised the bundle of umbrellas to her face and kissed the curved top of his stick. And now, what?
They drove to the hotel. Then they had dinner. In the evening they sat on the balcony, and watched the people passing below them. Handsome Italian officers, moustache-twisting and sword-clanking, passed in twos and threes, eyeing the hurrying modistes and the self-conscious signorine that walked beside their portly mothers and fathers. The military band was playing in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, and the music reached the balcony faintly. Then Nancy told him about her work. About the first book of verse that had set all Italy aflame, about the second, The Book, the work of her life, that had been interrupted.
He listened, smoking his cigar, and making no comment. Then he spoke.
"There is a boat from here on Wednesday. The Kaiser Wilhelm. A good old boat. Go over and fetch the child." Then he halted, and said: "Or do you like her to be brought up in America?"
"Oh no!" said Nancy.
"Well, fetch her," he said. "And fetch the old Fräulein across too, if she likes to come. Then go to Porto Venere, or to Spezia, or anywhere you like, and take a house, and sit down and work."
She could not speak. She saw Porto Venere white in the sunshine, tip-tilted over the sea, and she saw The Book that was to live, to live after all.
As she did not answer he said: "Don't you like it?"
She took his hand, and pressed it to her lips, and to her cheek, and to her heart. She could not answer. And his chilly blue eyes grew suddenly lighter than usual. "Dear little Miss Brown," he said; "dear, dear, foolish, little Miss Brown." And, bending forward, he kissed her forehead.
XVII
The Gartenhaus on Staten Island in the twilight, with lamplight and firelight gleaming through its casements, and a little hat of snow on its roof, looked like a Christ mas-card, when Nancy hurried through the narrow garden-gate, and ran up the tiny gravel-path. She had left all her belongings at the dock in order not to lose an instant. Anne-Marie's pink fingers were dragging at her heart.
Fräulein, foggy as to time-tables and arrivals of boats, had thought it wisest not to attempt a meeting at the crowded, draughty, New York landing-station. She had kept Anne-Marie indoors for the last three days, saying: "Your mother may be here any moment." After the first thirty-six hours of poignant expectancy and frequent runnings to the gate, Anne-Marie had silently despised Fräulein for telling naughty untruths, and had whispered in the hairy ear of Schopenhauer that she would never again believe a word Fräulein ever said again. Schopenhauer—whose name had been chosen by Fräulein for educational purposes, namely (as she wrote in her diary), "to enlarge the childish mind by familiarity with the names of authors and philosophers"—was sympathetic and equally sceptical when Fräulein Müller sibilantly urged him: "Schoppi, Schoppi, mistress is coming. Go seek mistress! Seek mistress, sir." But Schoppi, who had searched and sniffed every corner of the hedge, and dug rapid holes round the early cabbages and in the flower-bed, knew that "mistress" was a pleasurably exciting, but merely delusive and empty sound. And so nobody expected Nancy as she ran up the path in the twilight, and saw the lights shining through the casement.
Her heart beat in trepidant joy. She had been so anxious about Anne-Marie. During the last few hours of the journey she had had ghostly and tragic imaginings. What if Anne-Marie had been running about the island, and had fallen into the sea? What if a motor-car—her heart had given a great leap, and then dropped, like a ball of lead, turning her faint with reminiscent terror. She would not think about it. No, she would not think of such things any more. But what if Anne-Marie had scarlet fever? Yes! suddenly she felt convinced that Anne-Marie had scarlet fever, that she would see the little red flag of warning hanging out over the Gartenhaus door....
Nancy made ready to knock; then, before doing so, she dropped quickly to her knees on the snowy doorstep, and folded her hands in a childlike attitude of prayer: "O God! let me find Anne-Marie safe and happy!"
Almost in answer a sound struck her ear—a chord of sweetness and harmony, then a long, lonely note, and after it a quick twirl of running notes like a ripple of laughter. The violin!
Nancy sprang from the doorstep, and ran under the window that was lit up. She scrambled on to the rockery under it, and, scratching her hand against the climbing rose-branches, she grasped the ledge and looked in through the white-curtained glass. It was Anne-Marie. Standing in the circle of light from the lamp, with the violin held high on her left arm, and her cheek resting lightly against it, she looked like a little angel musician of Beato Angelico.
Her eyes were cast down, her floating hair rippled over her face. Nancy's throat tightened as she looked. Then Nancy's brain staggered as she listened. For the child was playing like an artist. Trills and arpeggios ran from under her fingers like clear water. Now a full and sonorous chord checked their springing lightness, and again the bubbling runs rilled out, sprinkling the twilight with music.
Nancy's hand slipped from the sill, and a rose-branch hit the window. Then the fox-terrier's sharp bark rang through the house; there were hurrying feet in the hall; the door was opened by the smiling Elisabeth—and Fräulein was exclaiming and questioning, and Anne-Marie was in her mother's arms. Warm, and living, and tight she held her creature, thanking God for the touch of the fleecy hair against her face, for the fresh cheek that smelt of soap, and the soft breath that smelt of grass and flowers.
"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! Have you missed me, darling?"
Anne-Marie was sobbing wildly. "No! No! I haven't! Only now! Only now!"
"But now you have me, my own love."
"But now I miss you! Now I miss you," sobbed Anne-Marie, incoherent and despairing. And her mother understood. Mothers understand.
"Anne-Marie! I shall never go away from you again! I promise!"
Anne-Marie looked up through shimmering tears. "Honest engine?" she asked brokenly, putting out a small damp hand.
"Honest engine," said Nancy, placing her hand solemnly in the hand of her little daughter. Schopenhauer, squirming with barks, was patted and admired, and made to sit up leaning against the leg of the table; and Fräulein told the news about Anne-Marie having doch gegessen the tapioca-puddings, but never the porridge, and seldom the vegetables. Then, as it was late, Anne-Marie was conducted upstairs by everybody, including Schopenhauer, and while Elisabeth unfastened buttons and tapes, Fräulein brushed and plaited the golden hair, and Nancy, on her knees before the child, laughed with her and kissed her.