Various - "Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850"

William Garden Blaikie - "The Personal Life Of David Livingstone"

Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885"

Alice Duer Miller - "The Beauty and the Bolshevist"

Student wins New York Times book review accolade
Moreover Technologies - Premier purveyor of real-time news and RSS feeds from across the Web

The Art of Short Selling: Book Review
Ad -

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi">Book Review: Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
A Cambridge School of Art graduate?s first book has been lauded in the international press. Kazuno Kohara, from Japan, who graduated from the MA in Children?s Book Illustration in 2007, has had her first book voted as one of 10 Best Illustrated

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / R / S / T / U / V / W / Y / Z

Clementina written by A.E.W. Mason

A >> A.E.W. Mason >> Clementina




"The King married this morning the Princess Clementina," said Wogan.
Lady Featherstone did not move her hand; she still waited. It was just
to hinder this marriage that she had come to Italy, but her failure was
at this moment of no account. She heard of it with indifference; it had
no meaning to her. She waited. Wogan's mere presence at the villa told
her there was more to come. He continued:--

"Last night Mr. Whittington came with the King to Bologna--you
understand, no doubt, why;" and she nodded without moving her eyes from
his face. She made no pretence as to the part she had played in the
affair. All the world might know it. That was a matter at this moment of
complete indifference. She waited.

"The King and Mr. Whittington came at nine of the night to the little
house which you once occupied. I was there, but I was not there alone.
Can your Ladyship conjecture whom I brought there? Your Ladyship, as I
learned last night from Mr. Whittington's own lips, had paid a visit
secretly, using a key which you had retained to the house on an excuse
that you had left behind jewels of some value. You saw her Highness the
Princess. You told her a story of the King and Mlle. de Caprara. I rode
to Rome, and when the King came last night Mlle. de Caprara was with the
Princess. I had evidence against Mr. Whittington, a confession of one of
the soldiers of the Governor of Trent, the leader of a party of five who
attacked me at Peri. No doubt you know of that little matter too;" and
again Lady Featherstone nodded.

"Thus your double plot--to set the King against the Princess, and the
Princess against the King--doubly failed."

"Go on," said Lady Featherstone, moistening her dry lips. Wogan told her
how from the little sitting-room on the ground-floor he had seen the
King and Whittington cross the lawn; he described his interview with
the King, and how he had come quietly down the stairs.

"I went into the garden," he went on, "and touched Whittington on the
elbow. I told him just what I have explained to you. I said, 'You are a
coward, a liar, a slanderer of women,' and I beat him on the mouth."

Lady Featherstone uttered a cry and drew herself into an extraordinary
crouching attitude, with her eyes blazing steadily at him. He thought
she meant to spring at him; he looked at that hand upon her heart to see
whether it held a weapon hidden in the fold of her bosom.

"Go on," she said; "and he?"

"He answered me in the strangest quiet way imaginable. 'You insulted
Lady Featherstone at Ohlau, Mr. Wogan,' said he, 'one evening when she
hid behind your curtain. It was a very delicate piece of drollery, no
doubt. But I shall be glad to show you another, view of it.' It is
strange how that had rankled in his thoughts. I liked him for it,--upon
my soul, I did,--though it was the only thing I liked in him."

"Go on," said Lady Featherstone. Mr. Wogan's likes or dislikes were of
no more interest to her than the failure of her effort to hinder the
marriage.

"We went to the bottom of the garden where there is a little square of
lawn hedged in with myrtle-trees. The night was very dark, so we
stripped to our shirts. From the waist upwards we were visible to each
other as a vague glimmer of white, and thus we fought, foot to foot,
among the myrtle-trees. We could not see so much as our swords unless
they clashed more than usually hard, and a spark struck from them. We
fought by guesswork and feel, and in the end luck served me. I drove my
sword through his chest until the hilt rang upon his breast-bone."

Then just a movement from Lady Featherstone as though she drew up her
feet beneath her.

"He lived for perhaps five minutes. He was in great distress lest harm
should come to you; and since there was no one but his enemy to whom he
could speak, why, he spoke to his enemy. I promised him, madam, that
with his death the story should be closed, if you left Italy within the
week."

"And he?" she interrupted,--"he died there. Well?"

"You know the laurel hedge by the sun-dial? There is an out-house where
the gardener keeps his tools. I found a spade there, and beneath that
laurel hedge I buried him."

Lady Featherstone rose to her feet. She spoke no word; she uttered no
cry; her face was white and terrible. She stood rigid like one
paralysed; then she swayed round and fell in a swoon upon the floor. And
as she fell, something bright slipped from her hand and dropped at
Wogan's feet. He picked it up. It was a stiletto. He stood looking down
at the childish figure with a queer compassionate smile upon his face.
"She could love," said he; "yes, she could love."

He walked out of the house, led his horse back onto the road and mounted
it. The night was gathering; there were purple shadows upon the
Apennines. Wogan rode away alone.




EPILOGUE


Sir Charles Wogan had opportunities enough to appreciate in later years
the accuracy of Maria Vittoria's prophecy. "Here are two people
cross-mated," said she, and events bore her out. The jealousies of
courtiers no doubt had their share in the estrangement of that unhappy
couple, but that was no consolation to Wogan, who saw, within so short a
time of that journey into Italy, James separated from the chosen woman,
and the chosen woman herself seeking the seclusion of a convent. As his
reward he was made Governor of La Mancha in Spain, and no place could
have been found with associations more suitable to this Irishman who
turned his back upon his fortunes at Peri. At La Mancha he lived for
many years, writing a deal of Latin verse, and corresponding with many
distinguished men in England upon matters of the intellect. Matters of
the heart he left alone, and meddled with no more. Nor did any woman
ever ride on his black horse into his city of dreams. He lived and died
a bachelor. The memory of that week when he had rescued his Princess and
carried her through the snows was to the last too vivid in his thoughts.
The thunderous roll of the carriage down the slopes, the sparks
striking from the wheels, the sound of Clementina's voice singing softly
in the darkness of the carriage, the walk under the stars to Ala, the
coming of the dawn about that lonely hut, high-placed amongst the pines.
These recollections bore him company through many a solitary evening.
Somehow the world had gone awry. Clementina, withdrawn into her convent,
was, after all, "wasted," as he had sworn she should not be. James was
fallen upon a deeper melancholy, and diminished hopes. He himself was an
exile alone in his white _patio_ in Spain. In only one point was Maria
Vittoria's prophecy at fault. She had spoken of two who were to find no
mates, and one of the two was herself. She married five years later.

THE END