"Yes, I could help you there. Old Bonnyfeather is, or was a Jacobite, yet in his trading here, and everywhere, he needs his British protection. You see I made certain concessions about his oath of allegiance. Nothing really irregular, you know," he added hastily. The priest smiled.
"I also made certain concessions."
"Ah, he is of your persuasion then. You are his confessor?" Mr. Udney did not press that point. The father sipped his port.
"In other words, if both of us should call on him, say, tomorrow," continued Mr. Udney, "he might find room in his establishment for a promising orphan. It would be difficult to resist both the temporal and ecclesiastical authorities combined. Would it not, father?"
"Impossible, I think," smiled the priest. "But why not tonight?"
"Why not?" echoed his host. "Mr. Bonnyfeather will not be busy."
They came out and sat in the hall looking into the big room. Mrs. Udney was touching the keys while Signore Terrini twittered through an aria in an affected tenor. The children were sitting close together, Anthony's bare toes gleaming out of his shoes. They seemed to be reflecting the warmth of his expression of happiness. Suddenly they started to dance. Mrs. Udney had caught sight of her audience in the hall and cutting off Signore Terrini rather mercilessly, had broken into the stirring strains of "Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre." The notes rang and the face of the boy became exalted. Mrs. Udney managed to beckon to her husband who came near. A smile passed between them quietly as they looked at the rapt face of Anthony. "Does he really stay tonight, then?" she asked. "Yes," said he stooping lower, watching her hands flutter over the keyboard. "Father Xavier and I are making final arrangements for him, I trust. Mr. Bonnyfeather!"
"Good," said she. "Splendid! I knew you would do something."
He rejoined Father Xavier in the hall.
Presently the sound of wheels was heard above the tune. The music ceased and Anthony returned to this world to find a strange little girl seated beside him. Mrs. Udney rose and took the children to their rooms.
Between the cool, lavender-scented sheets, a totally new experience for Anthony, his body seemed to be floating in the smooth water of the pool. From somewhere down the hall came the silvery voice of a little girl wishing him good night. As he sank deeper into the complete rest of tired happiness, he looked in vain for the face of the madonna over the foot of his bed. Presently a soft glow suffusing the white wall of his chamber, and the habit of his mind combined to place her there where she belonged. He began his prayer. His lips moved making a sound like the trees outside, and like that dying away into the peace of the night.
Father Xavier and Mr. Udney trotted rapidly down the winding road to Livorno. The moon was rising. The water and air about it became visible and blent together in a pervading white shimmer. In this the whiter buildings of the town and the long harbour mole seemed to swim. The coloured lights of the shipping were caught like fireflies in a dark web of tangled rigging and masts. The streets were silent, but from a Maltese ketch some distance out came the ecstatic agony of a pulsing stringed instrument punctuated by the beating of feet on deck. An occasional weird cry arose. In the light warm air the music was alternately loud and soft.
"The boy is in good hands tonight at least," said Father Xavier softly. "I wish . . ."
"It is curious," remarked Mr. Udney, "that no men are too savage to be affected by moonlight. It is the same to us all. Like imagination it presents a familiar world in a new light." Mr. Udney was privately given to this kind of semi-profundity. He hoped Father Xavier would be impressed.
"I am wondering," said the latter, "how Mr. Bonnyfeather will take the proposal of receiving so young a lad into his establishment. Since the death of his daughter . . ."
"Tush, man! That was a decade or so ago, wasn't it? Never fear. Secretly he may be glad to have this boy. A Scot, though, would never say so, you know."
They drew up before a long building whose arches looped along the water front, and were soon knocking loudly at a high double gate. The echo boomed through the emptiness beyond. In the sombre archway a streak of lantern light suddenly flowed under the gate.
"Wha be ye poondin' at sic a rate oot there?" grumbled a voice to itself while a chain rattled. A small grille opened and a head in a red night-cap peered through.
"It's Mr. Udney, Sandy," said that gentleman reassuringly. "And Father Xavier," he added as the lantern was flashed on them both suspiciously.
"Losh, mon, come in, come in!" replied the voice as the bolts were shot back. "To think I hae kepit the Breetish consul, and the faither durlen withoot. Mind ye dinna trrip ower the besom the noo."
Mr. Udney chuckled as their footfalls wakened the stones of the court.
Mr. Bonnyfeather was at home.
Chapter XI. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
ANTHONY was driven back to the convent the next morning in the cart with Florence. He was received with tears by Sister Agatha. There was a message for him to report to the mother superior. She had already relented and had made up her mind to give the boy only a sharp lesson and allow him to continue with Father Xavier. That the priest had already made other arrangements for bestowing the lad, she did not yet know.
His room and the court seemed warm and pleasantly familiar to Anthony. It was home after all. He was glad to see the madonna, but it was with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that he threaded the maze of long corridors leading to the mother superior's room. One was not summoned there for trifles. Already the outside world seemed distant and ineffectual. His feet raised stony echoes that might call a dangerous attention to himself. He began to walk on tiptoe.
Mother Marie Jose's cheek band had been illy laundered. It was rough and chafed her under the chin. She had removed it and was changing her head-dress when Anthony appeared silently and unexpectedly at the door. Looking in, the boy saw a perfectly smooth-shaven head shining like a skull, a face unexpectedly broad with two glittering, brown eyes staring out of it, and a birthmark that flowed down over the woman's chin into the breast of her black gown. Between the chin and the eyes the face seemed terribly vacant by contrast. It was an almost supernatural countenance. A comet seemed passing beneath two burning stars. Intense fear and horror contorted the face of the boy. Mother Marie Jose gave a faint scream and snatched at her head-dress which covered the secret of her life. From its broad, linen band only her fine wide forehead and her statuesque profile now showed. She had indeed taken the veil again, but from her eyes there still darted an intensely feminine fire. She approached Anthony deliberately and laid hold of his arm.
"Never tell what you saw," she said through her teeth. The grasp tightened. "Do you understand, you boy!" She began to shake him. Her face drew nearer. With a sudden desperate jerk he tore his arm free and dashed down the corridor. He flashed headlong into his room and stood there while a mixture of rage, fear, indignation, and surprise clutched his throat in dry, hard sobs. Presently he saw the calm face of the madonna through his tears. He snatched her to him from her niche and peeped out of the door. Old Sister Agatha had gone from the court. He took the statue, climbed with it into the tree, and hid himself.
Mother Marie Jose was also trembling with conflicting emotion in which anger and fear predominated. She rang her bell and sent urgently for Father Xavier. She spoke to him imperatively when he appeared. Her one idea now was to get Anthony away.
"I am sorry he has been impudent to you," he replied.
She accepted his unconscious explanation eagerly.
"Take him to your house until you have made your arrangements for him. I will not permit him to stay here. It is impossible. Not an hour. I . . ."