The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (phonics readers .txt) 📗
- Author: E. L. Voynich
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His greatest comfort was the head warder of the
prison. This was a little old man, fat and bald,
who at first had tried his hardest to wear a severe
expression. Gradually the good nature which
peeped out of every dimple in his chubby face conquered
his official scruples, and he began carrying
messages for the prisoners from cell to cell.
One afternoon in the middle of May this
warder came into the cell with a face so scowling
and gloomy that Arthur looked at him in
astonishment.
“Why, Enrico!” he exclaimed; “what on earth
is wrong with you to-day?”
“Nothing,” said Enrico snappishly; and, going
up to the pallet, he began pulling off the rug,
which was Arthur’s property.
“What do you want with my things? Am I to
be moved into another cell?”
“No; you’re to be let out.”
“Let out? What—to-day? For altogether?
Enrico!”
In his excitement Arthur had caught hold of the
old man’s arm. It was angrily wrenched away.
“Enrico! What has come to you? Why don’t
you answer? Are we all going to be let out?”
A contemptuous grunt was the only reply.
“Look here!” Arthur again took hold of the
warder’s arm, laughing. “It is no use for you to
be cross to me, because I’m not going to get
offended. I want to know about the others.”
“Which others?” growled Enrico, suddenly
laying down the shirt he was folding. “Not Bolla,
I suppose?”
“Bolla and all the rest, of course. Enrico, what
is the matter with you?”
“Well, he’s not likely to be let out in a hurry,
poor lad, when a comrade has betrayed him.
Ugh!” Enrico took up the shirt again in disgust.
“Betrayed him? A comrade? Oh, how dreadful!”
Arthur’s eyes dilated with horror. Enrico
turned quickly round.
“Why, wasn’t it you?”
“I? Are you off your head, man? I?”
“Well, they told him so yesterday at interrogation,
anyhow. I’m very glad if it wasn’t you, for I
always thought you were rather a decent young
fellow. This way!” Enrico stepped out into the
corridor and Arthur followed him, a light breaking
in upon the confusion of his mind.
“They told Bolla I’d betrayed him? Of course
they did! Why, man, they told me he had betrayed
me. Surely Bolla isn’t fool enough to
believe that sort of stuff?”
“Then it really isn’t true?” Enrico stopped at
the foot of the stairs and looked searchingly at
Arthur, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course it’s a lie.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it, my lad, and I’ll tell
him you said so. But you see what they told him
was that you had denounced him out of—well, out
of jealousy, because of your both being sweet on
the same girl.”
“It’s a lie!” Arthur repeated the words in a
quick, breathless whisper. A sudden, paralyzing
fear had come over him. “The same girl—jealousy!”
How could they know—how could they know?
“Wait a minute, my lad.” Enrico stopped in
the corridor leading to the interrogation room,
and spoke softly. “I believe you; but just tell me
one thing. I know you’re a Catholic; did you
ever say anything in the confessional––”
“It’s a lie!” This time Arthur’s voice had risen
to a stifled cry.
Enrico shrugged his shoulders and moved on
again. “You know best, of course; but you
wouldn’t be the only young fool that’s been taken
in that way. There’s a tremendous ado just now
about a priest in Pisa that some of your friends
have found out. They’ve printed a leaflet saying
he’s a spy.”
He opened the door of the interrogation room,
and, seeing that Arthur stood motionless, staring
blankly before him, pushed him gently across the
threshold.
“Good-afternoon, Mr. Burton,” said the colonel,
smiling and showing his teeth amiably. “I have
great pleasure in congratulating you. An order
for your release has arrived from Florence. Will
you kindly sign this paper?”
Arthur went up to him. “I want to know,” he
said in a dull voice, “who it was that betrayed
me.”
The colonel raised his eyebrows with a smile.
“Can’t you guess? Think a minute.”
Arthur shook his head. The colonel put out
both hands with a gesture of polite surprise.
“Can’t guess? Really? Why, you yourself,
Mr. Burton. Who else could know your private
love affairs?”
Arthur turned away in silence. On the wall
hung a large wooden crucifix; and his eyes wandered
slowly to its face; but with no appeal in
them, only a dim wonder at this supine and patient
God that had no thunderbolt for a priest who betrayed
the confessional.
“Will you kindly sign this receipt for your
papers?” said the colonel blandly; “and then I
need not keep you any longer. I am sure you
must be in a hurry to get home; and my time is
very much taken up just now with the affairs of
that foolish young man, Bolla, who tried your
Christian forbearance so hard. I am afraid he
will get a rather heavy sentence. Good-afternoon!”
Arthur signed the receipt, took his papers, and
went out in dead silence. He followed Enrico to
the massive gate; and, without a word of farewell,
descended to the water’s edge, where a ferryman
was waiting to take him across the moat. As he
mounted the stone steps leading to the street, a
girl in a cotton dress and straw hat ran up to him
with outstretched hands.
“Arthur! Oh, I’m so glad—I’m so glad!”
He drew his hands away, shivering.
“Jim!” he said at last, in a voice that did not
seem to belong to him. “Jim!”
“I’ve been waiting here for half an hour. They
said you would come out at four. Arthur, why do
you look at me like that? Something has happened!
Arthur, what has come to you? Stop!”
He had turned away, and was walking slowly
down the street, as if he had forgotten her presence.
Thoroughly frightened at his manner, she
ran after him and caught him by the arm.
“Arthur!”
He stopped and looked up with bewildered eyes.
She slipped her arm through his, and they walked
on again for a moment in silence.
“Listen, dear,” she began softly; “you mustn’t
get so upset over this wretched business. I know
it’s dreadfully hard on you, but everybody understands.”
“What business?” he asked in the same dull
voice.
“I mean, about Bolla’s letter.”
Arthur’s face contracted painfully at the name.
“I thought you wouldn’t have heard of it,”
Gemma went on; “but I suppose they’ve told
you. Bolla must be perfectly mad to have imagined
such a thing.”
“Such a thing–-?”
“You don’t know about it, then? He has
written a horrible letter, saying that you have told
about the steamers, and got him arrested. It’s
perfectly absurd, of course; everyone that knows
you sees that; it’s only the people who don’t know
you that have been upset by it. Really, that’s what
I came here for—to tell you that no one in our
group believes a word of it.”
“Gemma! But it’s—it’s true!”
She shrank slowly away from him, and stood
quite still, her eyes wide and dark with horror, her
face as white as the kerchief at her neck. A great
icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round
them both, shutting them out, in a world apart,
from the life and movement of the street.
“Yes,” he whispered at last; “the steamers—
I spoke of that; and I said his name—oh, my God!
my God! What shall I do?”
He came to himself suddenly, realizing her presence
and the mortal terror in her face. Yes, of
course, she must think––
“Gemma, you don’t understand!” he burst out,
moving nearer; but she recoiled with a sharp cry:
“Don’t touch me!”
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden
violence.
“Listen, for God’s sake! It was not my fault;
I–-”
“Let go; let my hand go! Let go!”
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away
from his, and struck him across the cheek with her
open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes. For a little
while he was conscious of nothing but Gemma’s
white and desperate face, and the right hand which
she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton
dress. Then the daylight crept back again, and he
looked round and saw that he was alone.
CHAPTER VII.
IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the
front door of the great house in the Via Borra. He
remembered that he had been wandering about
the streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he
had no idea. Julia’s page opened the door, yawning,
and grinned significantly at the haggard,
stony face. It seemed to him a prodigious joke to
have the young master come home from jail like
a “drunk and disorderly” beggar. Arthur went
upstairs. On the first floor he met Gibbons coming
down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval.
He tried to pass with a muttered “Good
evening”; but Gibbons was no easy person to get
past against his will.
“The gentlemen are out, sir,” he said, looking
critically at Arthur’s rather neglected dress and
hair. “They have gone with the mistress to an
evening party, and will not be back till nearly
twelve.”
Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o’clock.
Oh, yes! he would have time—plenty of time––
“My mistress desired me to ask whether you
would like any supper, sir; and to say that she
hopes you will sit up for her, as she particularly
wishes to speak to you this evening.”
“I don’t want anything, thank you; you can
tell her I have not gone to bed.”
He went up to his room. Nothing in it had
been changed since his arrest; Montanelli’s portrait
was on the table where he had placed it, and
the crucifix stood in the alcove as before. He
paused a moment on the threshold, listening; but
the house was quite still; evidently no one was
coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the
room and locked the door.
And so he had come to the end. There was
nothing to think or trouble about; an importunate
and useless consciousness to get rid of—and nothing
more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of
thing, somehow.
He had not formed any resolve to commit suicide,
nor indeed had he thought much about it;
the thing was quite obvious and inevitable. He
had even no definite idea as to what manner of
death to choose; all that mattered was to be done
with it quickly—to have it over and forget. He
had no weapon in the room, not even a pocketknife;
but that was of no consequence—a towel
would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
There was a large nail just over the window.
That would do; but it must be firm to bear his
weight. He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it
was not quite firm, and he stepped down again and
took a hammer from a drawer. He knocked in the
nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed,
when he suddenly remembered that he had not
said his prayers. Of course, one must pray before
dying; every Christian does that. There are even
special prayers for a departing soul.
He went into the alcove and knelt down before
the crucifix. “Almighty and merciful God–-”
he began aloud; and with that broke off and said
no
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