When he was gone Vansittart took up his pen and wrote hastily to Sefton.
“Dear Mr. Sefton,
“Your excellent Ferrari has been here, and I have gone carefully through his statement. It is plausible, but by no means convincing; and I see ample room for error in a chain of facts which rest upon hearsay. Under these conditions I am more than ever desirous that no hint of Ferrari’s story should reach Miss Marchant. Forgive me for reminding you of your promise. It would be a deplorable business if this dear girl were made unhappy about a chimera.
“I go to Redwold tomorrow, and shall stay over Whitsuntide. We are to be married before the end of June, very quietly, at Fernhurst Church.
He rather despised himself for writing in this friendly strain to a man for whom he had an instinctive dislike; but he tried to believe that his dislike was mere prejudice, and that Sefton’s manner with Eve, to which he had taken such violent objection, was only Sefton’s manner to young women in general; a bad manner, but without any sinister feeling underlying it—only a bad manner.
Tomorrow he was to go to Redwold, to be his sister’s guest till after Whitsuntide, or until the wedding, if he pleased. And before June was pushed aside by her sultrier sister July, he was to be Eve Marchant’s husband. Every day of his life brought that union a day nearer. It had come now to the counting of days. It seemed to him as if time and the calendar were no more—as if he and his love were being swept along on the strong current of their happiness. He could think of nothing, care for nothing but Eve. His bailiff’s letters, his lawyer’s letters, remained unanswered. He could not bring himself even to consider his mother’s suggestions as to this or that improvement at Merewood, whither Mrs. Vansittart was going at Whitsuntide, to prepare all things for the coming of the bride, and to arrange for her own removal.
“Do as much or as little as you like, mother,” Vansittart said. “You need alter nothing. Eve will be pleased with things as they are.”
“It will be a great change from a cottage,” sighed Mrs. Vansittart. “I’m afraid she will be bewildered and overpowered by a large household. She can have no idea of managing servants.”
“The servants can manage themselves, mother. I don’t want a managing wife. Yet from what I have seen of Eve in her own home I take her to be well up in domestic matters. Everything at the Homestead seemed the essence of comfort.”
He remembered his wintry tea-drinking, the tea and toast, the cake and jam-pots, and Eve’s radiant face; the firelight on Eve’s hair; the sense of quiet happiness which pervaded the place where his love was queen. It seemed to him that there could not have been one inharmonious note in that picture. Order and beauty and domestic peace were there. Should Fate reduce him to poverty he could be utterly happy with his love in just such a home. He wanted neither splendid surroundings nor brilliant society.
Having heard all that Ferrari could tell him, he felt easier in his mind than he had felt since that unpleasant hour with his mother and Sefton on Saturday evening. The more he thought of the courier’s chain of evidence, the weaker it seemed to him. No, he could not think that the man he had killed was the brother of the woman he was going to marry. He tried to recall the man’s face; but the suddenness and fury of that deadly encounter had afforded no time for minute observation. The man’s face had flashed upon him out of the crowd—fair-haired, fair-skinned, amidst all those olive complexions—a face and figure that bore down upon him with the impression of physical power; handsome only as the typical gladiator is handsome. What more could he remember? Irregular features, strongly marked; a low forehead; and light blue eyes. The Marchants were a blue-eyed race; but that went for little in a country where the majority of eyes are blue or grey.
Vansittart remembered his promise to visit Fiordelisa and her aunt; and as this was his last day in London, perhaps, for some time, he gave up his afternoon to the performance of that promise. Tuesday was one of the Professor’s days; and he had promised to hear the Professor’s opinion of Signora Vivanti’s progress.
Since that painful hour on Saturday he had thought seriously of the impulsive Venetian, and of his relations with her—relations which he felt to be full of peril. It had occurred to him that there was only one way to secure Fiordelisa’s future welfare, while strictly maintaining his own incognito, and that was by the purchase of an annuity. It would cost him some thousands to capitalize that income of two hundred a year, which he had resolved to allow Lisa; but he had reserves which he could afford to draw upon, the accumulations of his minority, invested in railway stock. Any lesser sacrifice would appear to him too poor an atonement; for after all, it was possible that, but for him, Fiordelisa’s Englishman might have kept his promise and married her. No, Vansittart did not think he would be doing too much in securing these two women against poverty for the rest of their lives—and the annuity once bought he would be justified in disappearing out of Fiordelisa’s life, and leaving her in ignorance of his name and belongings.
He spent an hour with his lawyer before going to Chelsea, and from that gentleman obtained all needful information as to the proper manner of purchasing an annuity, and the best people with whom to invest his money.
This done, he walked across the Park, and arrived at Saltero’s Mansion on the stroke of four. Lisa had
