Part 11

How strange it all was! he thought that night as he stood at the door of the inn where he was staying at Sorrento, and listened to the singing of the fishermen putting out to sea. How strange it all was! The seven years that had passed since he had last heard the hymn of the fishermen in that Bay seemed no more than so many days. He had had his adventures since he had been so foolish as to fancy himself in love with Paolina--poor Paolina! A good many faces had interposed between the face of the Italian girl of 1815 and the face of the Italian Marchesa in 1822. But what a whimsical fate it was that had made him fall in love with the Marchesa del Grippo more deeply than he had ever permitted himself to fall in regard to other women! He had never known what it was to love before, though she was the woman whom he should have avoided, even if there were no other woman to love in the wide world.

Ah, it was fate--the Marchesa had said so that afternoon at the Villa Galeotto. She had loved him from the first--he was ready to swear to that. He remembered now certain indications of her passion which he had noticed the first evening they had met, but which had escaped his memory. It was at Lady Blessington’s in Kensington, and the Marchesa had expressed the pleasure it gave her to meet with an Englishman who spoke such excellent Italian. He had been very cautious at that time in replying to her questions as to the length of time he had been in Italy and the places that he had visited. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that, after the lapse of seven years, any one might recognise him as the lover of Paolina, so it was just as well, he thought, to be careful. He had not mentioned a word about Sorrento, and not until the Marchesa had stood by his side in the garden of the Villa Galeotto had he lapsed in his feigning a complete ignorance of the locality. It was the force of his passion for that lovely woman which had overwhelmed him, causing him to forget himself and to refer by name to various landmarks.

But what did it matter now? The woman had responded to him, and in a day or two would be by his side for--well, for as long as he pleased. A short distance away Lord Byron was affording the Italians a new reading of the cold-blooded Englishman; but Sir Percival Cleave would take very good care that he was not made such a fool of by the Marchesa as Lord Byron was by the Contessa Guicciola. Byron was practically a pauper, whereas he, Sir Percival Cleave, was rich. He could therefore (the logic was his) prevent himself from ever being made a fool of by any woman, Marchesa or Contessa though she might be.

But he loved her--of that he was certain. He had asked her if he would have faced the discomforts of a journey from England to Italy had he not been in love with her; and now as he stood listening to the fishermen’s hymns sung in the boats that were drifting out of the Bay, he asked himself the same question. Oh yes, he loved her! and her husband was cruel to her--she had told him so in England, and she had been greatly comforted by his assurance--given in answer to her inquiry--that the crime of being cruel to her was so great as to condone any act of hers--say, running away with another man.

She was superstitious; she had some scruples. The priests, no doubt, were in the pay of her husband, and they had probably exaggerated the crime of a wife’s leaving a husband,--it would be so like a greasy Italian priest to lay emphasis upon this one particular act; but he, an English gentleman to the core, and properly sensible of the blessings of a Protestant king and constitution, had succeeded in counteracting the insidious teaching of the priests. She had listened to him. She had readily accepted that great truth: a woman’s retaliation to her husband’s cruelty is sanctified in the eyes of heaven. That was his point: the eyes of heaven. It was immaterial in what light such an act of retaliation as he suggested to her would appear in the eyes of the people of the world.

Before he slept he had brought himself to believe that he was actually the lady’s honourable champion, boldly coming forward to rescue her from an intolerable oppressor.

The Castello del Grippo was built on the summit of the headland that sloped away from the sea at one side, but was very precipitous on the other. For three hundred years the family of Del Grippo had been accustomed to display a light in the tower nightly for the guidance of the fishing-boats, for the Castle could be seen from the north as well as the south. For more than a mile on the shoreward side of the Castle the olive-trees grew mixed with lemons and oranges; and as Sir Percival rode along the somewhat rough avenue on his way to accept the hospitality of the man whose wife he had the previous day been instructing on some interesting points in regard to her duty, he was entranced with the perfumes of the fruits and flowers. The air was heavy with odours of the citrons, and the gold of the luscious fruit gleamed among the glossy leaves. Though he had never been on the avenue before, the gleam of the fruit and the exquisite scents brought back to him the sweet memory of Paolina. It was not at this side of the great garden that he had been accustomed to meet her, but on the other side--that nearest the cliff, a mile away.

It was a sweet sad memory, and it was so poignant that it even caused him to sigh and murmur--

“Ah, la povera Paolina! la povera Paolina!”

And having thereby satisfied himself that his heart was as soft as the heart of a little child, he urged his horse forward.

He soon reached the Castle, and it seemed gloomy enough, outlined against the wonderful blue sky. He had seen numbers of the peasants working among the olives, but close to the Castle none were in sight. It was not until he had dismounted and pulled the handle of the old iron bell that a servant appeared. In a few moments the Marchese himself came out of a room at one side of the hall and welcomed his guest, giving instructions to another servant to stable the horse.

“You have not met the Marchesa?” he inquired of Sir Percival. “She left the Castle half-an-hour ago, trusting to meet you. Pray enter and we shall have some refreshment.”

But Sir Percival declined to enter in the absence of the Marchesa. He felt that to do so would be very gross--to say the least of it. The idea of sitting down with the Marchese while the lady--his lady--was wandering disconsolately around the grounds in search of him was very repugnant to him.

“As you will,” said the Marchese with a shrug when he remarked that he would like to go in search of the Marchesa. “As you will. She is not likely to get lost. Oh yes; we shall go in search of her, and that will serve me as an excuse for showing you some of the spots to which interest attaches within our grounds.”

He picked up a hat and stick and left the Castle with his visitor.

“We shall first go to the grove where the historic duel was fought between my ancestor and the two nephews of Pope Adrian,” said the Marchese. “You have heard of that affair, no doubt.”

“Shall we be likely to find the Marchesa there?” asked Sir Percival.

“As likely as not we shall meet her as we go there,” replied the Marchese.

He led the way through an avenue of ilex, and they soon came upon a cleared space at the foot of a terrace of rocks. The Marchese explained the position occupied by the combatants in the famous duel that had so consolidated the position of the family of Del Grippo. But all the time the details of the incident were being explained to him Sir Percival was casting his eyes around for the appearance of the lady. What did he care about Pope Adrian or his nephews so long as his lady--he had come to think of her as his lady--was roaming the grounds in search of him?

Then his host brought him to where the body of his grandfather had been found by the side of the three men whom he had killed before receiving the fatal blow from behind, dealt by that poltroon, Prince Roberto, who had hired four of his bravos to attack the old man. At another part of the grounds were the ruins of the ancient summer-house, where a certain member of this distinguished family had strangled his wife, whom he had suspected of infidelity, though, as the Marchese explained, the lady had saved him more than once from assassination and was perfectly guiltless.

An hour had been passed viewing these very interesting localities, about which the air of the middle ages still lingered, and still the Marchesa was absent.

“Should we not return to the Castle? the Marchesa may be waiting for us,” suggested Sir Percival.

“A thousand pardons,” cried the Marchese. “I fear I have fatigued you. You are thirsty.”

“Well, yes; I am somewhat thirsty,” laughed the visitor.

“How discourteous I have been! We shall have the refreshment of an orange before returning. There is a famous grove a short way toward the cliff.”

He strode onward, and then, suddenly turning down a narrow path made among the olives, Sir Percival gave a start, for he found himself by the side of the Marchese, at the one part of those grounds with which he was well acquainted. They stood among the orange-trees at the summit of the cliff which he had nightly climbed to meet Paolina.

“Here are our choicest fruits,” said the Marchese, plucking an orange and handing it to his visitor. “Break it open and you will see how exquisite the fruit is.”

Sir Percival broke the orange, but the moment he did so it fell from his fingers and he gave a cry of horror, for out of the fruit had come a red stream staining his hands.

The Marchese laughed loud and long.

“Your hands are embrued with blood,” he said. “Oh, a stranger might fancy for a moment that Sir Percival Cleave was a murderer. Ah! pray pardon my folly. That is only the refreshing juice of the orange. And yet you fancied that it was blood! Come, my friend, take courage; here is another. Eat it; you will find it delicious. I have heard that there are in the world such strange monsters as are refreshed by drinking blood--we have ourselves vampires in this neighbourhood. But you and I, sir, we prefer only the heart’s blood of a simple orange. You will eat one.”

“I could not touch one,” said Sir Percival. “Nay; to do me the favour? What! an Englishman and superstitious?”

Sir Percival took another orange and made a pretence of eating it. His hands trembled so, however, they were soon dripping with the crimson juice.

“You are caught red-handed in the act,” said the Marchese, “red-handed-- but the man who came here long ago was not so captured.”

“Another medieval story?” said Sir Percival. “Had your Excellency not better reserve it for the evening?”

“This story is not a medieval one; and it can only be told on the spot,” said the Marchese. “You have never been here before or you would not need to be told that this orange-grove was until seven years ago an ordinary one. It was not until blood was spilt here seven years ago that the fruit became crimson when bruised, and blood--your hands are dyed with it----flowed from it as you have seen--it is on your lips--you have drunk of her blood--Paolina’s.”

“For Gods sake let us leave this place!” said Sir Percival hoarsely. “I have heard enough stories of bloodshed.”

“Nay; this one is so piteous, you shall hear it and weep, sir--ah! tears of blood might be drawn from the most hard-hearted at the story of Paolina. She was a sweet girl. She lived with her sister, who is now the Marchesa----”

“Good God!”

“What amazes you, sir? Is it remarkable that my wife should have had a sister?’

“No, no; of course not; I was only surprised to find those horrid marks still on my hands. Pray let us return to the Castle and permit me to remove the stains.”

“Poor Paolina!--she lived at the Castle with our aunt seven years ago. She was a flower of girlhood. I thought myself in love with her; but when my brother Ugo--he was the elder--confided in me that he loved her, I left the Castle. He loved her, and it seemed that she returned his affection. They were betrothed, and one could not doubt that their happiness was assured. But one evil day she met a man--a scoundrel; I regret to say that he was an Englishman--do not move, sir, you shall hear me out. This villain spoke to her of love. He tempted her. She was accustomed to meet him every evening on this very spot--we learned that he sailed from Sorrento and climbed the cliff. My brother began to suspect. He followed her here one evening, and she confessed everything to him. He was a passionate man, and he strangled her here--here--and then flung himself headlong from the cliff.”

“A gruesome story, Marchese. Now, shall we return?”

“Villain!--assassin!--look at your hands--they are wet with her blood--your lips--they have drunk her blood, but ‘tis their last draught--for----”

Sir Percival sprang at the man and caught him by the throat, but in an instant his hands relaxed. He had only strength to glance round. He saw the woman who had stabbed him, before he fell forward.

“That one was for her--for her--my beloved sister. This one is for our dear brother--the man whom you wronged. This----”

She stabbed him again. His blood mixed with the crimson stains on the earth.

“Look at it--bear witness that I have kept my oath,” cried the Marchesa. “Did not I swear that his blood should be drunk by the same earth that drank hers?”

“Beloved one, you are an angel--an avenging angel!” cried the Marchese, embracing his wife.

The next day Sir Percival Cleave’s horse was found dead at the foot of one of the cliffs; but the body of the “unfortunate baronet”--so he was termed by the newspapers (English)--was never recovered.

THE STRANGE STORY OF NORTHAVON PRIORY.

When Arthur Jephson wrote to me to join his Christmas party at Northavon Priory, I was set wondering where I had heard the name of this particular establishment. I felt certain that I had heard the name before, but I could not recollect for the moment whether I had come upon it in a newspaper report of a breach of promise of marriage or in a Blue-Book bearing upon Inland Fisheries: I rather inclined to the belief that it was in a Blue-Book of some sort. I had been devoting myself some years previously to an exhaustive study of this form of literature; for being very young, I had had a notion that a Blue-Book education was essential to any one with parliamentary aspirations. Yes, I had, I repeat, been very young at that time, and I had not found out that a Blue-Book is the _oubliette_ of inconvenient facts.

It was not until I had promised Arthur to be with him on Christmas Eve that I recollected where I had read something about Northavon Priory, and in a moment I understood how it was I had acquired the notion that the name had appeared in an official document. I had read a good deal about this Priory in a curious manuscript which I had unearthed at Sir Dennis le Warden’s place in Norfolk, known as Marsh Towers. The document, which, with many others, I found stowed away in a wall-cupboard in the great library, purported to be a draft of the evidence taken before one of the Commissions appointed by King Henry VIII. to inquire into the abuses alleged to be associated with certain religious houses throughout England. An ancestor of Sir Dennis’s had, it appeared, been a member of one of these Commissions, and he had taken a note of the evidence which he had in the course of his duties handed to the King.

The parchments had, I learned, been preserved in an iron coffer with double padlocks, but the keys had been lost at some remote period, and then the coffer had been covered over with lumber in a room in the east tower overlooking the moat, until an outbreak of fire had resulted in an overturning of the rubbish and a discovery of the coffer. A blacksmith had been employed to pick the locks, which he did with a sledge-hammer; but it was generally admitted that his energy had been wasted when the contents of the box were made known. Sir Dennis cared about nothing except the improvement of the breed of horses through the agency of race meetings, so the manuscripts of his painstaking ancestor were bundled into one of the presses in the library, some, however, being reserved by the intelligent housekeeper in the still-room to make jam-pot covers--a purpose for which, as she explained to me at considerable length, they were extremely well adapted.

I had no great difficulty in deciphering those that came under my hand, for I had had considerable experience of the tricks of early English writers; and as I read I became greatly interested in all the original “trustie and well-beelou’d Sir Denice le Warden” had written. The frankness of the evidence which he had collected on certain points took away my breath, although I had been long accustomed to the directness with which some of the fifteenth-century people expressed themselves.

Northavon Priory was among the religious houses whose practices had formed the subject of the inquiry, and it was the summary of Sir Denice’s notes regarding the Black Masses alleged to have been celebrated within its walls that proved so absorbing to me. The bald account of the nature of these orgies would of itself have been sufficient, if substantiated, to bring about the dissolution of all the order in England. The Black Mass was a pagan revel, the details of which were unspeakable, though their nature was more than hinted at by the King’s Commissioner. Anything so monstrously blasphemous could not be imagined by the mind of man, for with the pagan orgie there was mixed up the most solemn rite of the Mass. It was celebrated on the night of Christmas Eve, and at the hour of midnight the celebration culminated in an invocation to the devil, written so as to parody an office of the Church, and, according to the accounts of some witnesses, in a human sacrifice. Upon this latter point, however, Sir Denice admitted there was a diversity of opinion.

One of the witnesses examined was a man who had entered the Priory grounds from the river during a fearful tempest, on one Christmas Eve, and had, he said, witnessed the revel through a window to which he had climbed. He declared that at the hour of midnight the candles had been extinguished, but that a moment afterwards an awful red light had floated through the room, followed by the shrieks of a human being at the point of strangulation, and then by horrible yells of laughter. Another man who was examined had been a wood-cutter in the service of the Priory, and he had upon one occasion witnessed the celebration of a Black Mass; but he averred that no life was sacrificed, though he admitted that in the strange red light, which had flashed through the room, he had seen what appeared to be two men struggling on the floor. In the general particulars of the orgie there was, however, no diversity of opinion, and had the old Sir Denice le Warden been anything of a comparative mythologist, he could scarcely fail to have been greatly interested in being brought face to face with so striking an example of the survival of an ancient superstition within the walls of a holy building.

During a rainy week I amused myself among the parchments dealing with Northavon Priory, and although what I read impressed me greatly at the time, yet three years of pretty hard work in various parts of the world had so dulled my memory of any incident so unimportant as the deciphering of a mouldy document that, as I have already stated, it was not until I had posted my letter to Arthur Jephson agreeing to spend a day or two with his party, that I succeeded in recalling something of what I had read regarding Northavon Priory.

I had taken it for granted that the Priory had been demolished when Henry had superintended the dissolution of the religious establishments throughout the country: I did not think it likely that one with such a record as was embodied in the notes would be allowed to remain with a single stone on another. A moment’s additional reflection admitted of my perceiving how extremely unlikely it was that, even if Northavon Priory had been spared by the King, it would still be available for visitors during the latter years of the nineteenth century. I had seen many red-brick “abbeys” and “priories” in various parts of the country, not more than ten years old, inhabited mostly by gentlemen who had made fortunes in iron, or perhaps lard, which constitutes, I understand, an excellent foundation for a fortune. There might be, for all I knew, a score of Northavon Priories in England. Arthur Jephson’s father had made his money by the judicious advertising of a certain oriental rug manufactured in the Midlands, and I thought it very likely that he had built a mansion for himself which he had called Northavon Priory.

A letter which I received from Arthur set my mind at rest. He explained to me very fully that Northavon Priory was a hotel built within the walls of an ancient religious house.

He had spent a delightful month fishing in the river during the summer,--I had been fishing in the Amazon at that time,--and had sojourned at the hotel, which he had found to be a marvel of comfort in spite of its picturesqueness. This was why, he said, he had thought how jolly it would be to entertain a party of his friends at the place during the Christmas week.

That explanation was quite good enough for me. I had a week or two to myself in England before going to India, and so soon as I recalled what I had read regarding North-avon Priory, I felt glad that my liking for Jephson had induced me to accept his invitation.

It was not until we were travelling together to the station nearest to the Priory that he mentioned to me, quite incidentally, that during the summer he had been fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a young woman who resided in a spacious mansion within easy distance of the Priory Hotel, and who was, so far as he was capable of judging,--and he considered that in such matters his judgment was worth something,--the most charming girl in England.

“I see,” I remarked before his preliminary panegyric had quite come to a legitimate conclusion--“I see all now: you haven’t the courage--to be more exact, the impudence--to come down alone to the hotel--she has probably a brother who is a bit of an athlete--but you think that Tom Singleton and I will form a good enough excuse for an act on your part which parents and guardians can construe in one way only.”

“Well, perhaps----Hang it all, man, you needn’t attribute to me any motives but those of the purest hospitality,” laughed my companion. “Isn’t the prospect of a genuine old English Christmas--the Yule log, and that sort of thing--good enough for you without going any further?”

“It’s quite good enough for me,” I replied. “I only regret that it is not good enough for you. You expect to see her every day?”

“Every day? Don’t be a fool, Jim. If I see her more than four times in the course of the week--I think I should manage to see her four times--I will consider myself exceptionally lucky.”

“And if you see her less than four times you will reckon yourself uncommonly unlucky?”

“O, I think I have arranged for four times all right: I’ll have to trust to luck for the rest.”

“What! you mean to say that the business has gone as far as that?”

“As what?”

“As making arrangements for meetings with her?”

My friend laughed complacently.

“Well, you see, old chap, I couldn’t very well give you this treat without letting her know that I should be in the neighbourhood,” said he.

“Oh, indeed. I don’t see, however, what the----”

“Great heavens! You mean to say that you don’t see----Oh, you will have your joke.”

“I hope I will have one eventually; I can’t say that I perceive much chance of one at present, however. You’ll not give us much of your interesting society during the week of our treat, as you call it.”