The Devourers. Annie Vivanti

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СКАЧАТЬ who was not there, Valeria, with qualms and twinges, took a sheet of paper and wrote her name on it. The paper had a black border. Valeria suddenly fell on her knees and kissed the black border, and prayed that Tom might forgive her. Then she burned it, and went to her baby, who was quarrelling with everything and trying to kill an India-rubber sheep.

      Yet one day in April—an April swooning with soft suggestions, urging its own evanescence and the fleeting sweetness of life—Mr. Frederick Allen, in his London lodgings, received two letters instead of one. Hannah, the pert maid who brought them to his room, lingered while he opened them. In the first was a cheque for six guineas from a periodical; in the other was a visiting-card:

      VALERIA NINA AVORY.

      "Who the dickens …?" he said, turning the card over. "Here!" and he threw it across to Hannah. "Here's a French modiste, or something, if you want falals!"

      Then, as he had received six guineas when he had only expected four, he shut up his law-book, pinched Hannah's cheek en passant, and went out for a day up the river with the man next door.

      The card was thrown into the coal-box, and the kitchen-maid burnt it. And that is all.

      April brought the baby a tooth.

      May brought it another tooth, and gave a wave to its hair. June took away its bibs, and gave it a smile with a dimple copied from Valeria's. July brought it short lace frocks and a word or two. August stood it upright and exultant, with its back to the wall; and September sent it tottering and trilling into its mother's arms.

      Its name was Giovanna Desiderata Felicita.

      "I cannot remember that," said the grandfather. "Call him Tom."

      "But, grandpapa, it is a girl," said Edith.

      "I know, my dear. You have told me so before," said the old gentleman testily. He had become very irritable since there had been so much noise in the house.

      "Well, what girl's name can you remember?" asked Mrs. Avory, patting her old father's hand, and frowning at her daughter, Edith.

      "None—none at all," said the old man.

      "Come now, come now, dear!" said Mrs. Avory. "Can you remember Annie, or Mary?"

      "No, I cannot," said her father.

      Then Edith suggested "Jane," and Valeria "Camilla." And Florence, who was laying the cloth, said: "Try him with 'Nellie' or 'Katy.'" But the old gentleman peevishly refused to remember any of those names.

      And for months he called the baby Tom.

      One day at dinner he said: "Where is Nancy?"

      Mrs. Avory and Edith glanced at each other, and Valeria looked up in surprise.

      "Where is Nancy?" repeated the grandfather impatiently.

      Mrs. Avory coughed. Then she laid her hand gently on his sleeve. "Nancy is in heaven," she said softly.

      "What!" cried the old gentleman, throwing down his table-napkin and glaring round the table.

      "Your dear little daughter Nancy died many, many years ago," said Mrs. Avory.

      The old gentleman rose. "It is not true!" he said with shaking voice. "She was here this morning. I saw her." Then his lips trembled, and he began to cry.

      Valeria suddenly started up and ran from the room. In a moment she was back again, with her baby in its pink nightdress, kicking and crowing in her arms.

      "Here's Nancy!" she said, with a little break in her voice.

      "Why, of course!" cried Edith, clapping her hands. "Don't cry, grandpapa. Here's Nancy."

      "Yes," said Mrs. Avory. "See, father dear, here's Nancy!"

      The old man looked up, and his dim blue eyes met and held the sparkling eyes of the child. Long and deeply he looked into the limpid depths that returned his unwavering gaze.

      "Yes, here's Nancy," said the old man.

      So the baby was Nancy ever after.

      IV

      When Nancy had three candles round her birthday-cake, and was pulling crackers with her eyes shut, and her mother's hands pressed tightly over her ears, Edith put her elbows on the table, and said:

      "What is Nancy going to be?"

      "Good," answered Nancy quickly—"veddy good. Another cwacker."

      So she got another cracker, and Edith repeated her question.

      Mrs. Avory said: "What do you mean?"

      "Well," said Edith, whose two plaits had melted into one, with a large black bow fastened irrelevantly to the wrong end of it, "you don't want her to be just a girl, do you?"

      Valeria blushed, and said: "I have often thought I should like her to be a genius."

      Edith nodded approval, and Mrs. Avory looked dubiously at the little figure, now discreetly dragging the tablecloth down in an attempt to reach the crackers. Nancy noted the soft look, and sidled round to her grandmother.

      "Hold my ears," she said, "and give me a cwacker."

      Mrs. Avory patted the small head, and smoothed out the blue ribbon that tied up the tuft of black curls.

      "Why do you want me to hold your ears?"

      "Because I am afwaid of the cwackers."

      "Then why do you want the crackers?"

      "Because I like them."

      "But why do you like them?"

      "Because I am afwaid of them!" and Nancy smiled bewitchingly.

      Everybody found this an astonishingly profound reply, and the question of Nancy's genius recurred constantly in the conversation.

      Edith said: "Of course, it will be painting. Her father, poor dear Tom, was such a wonderful landscape-painter. And I believe he did some splendid figures, too."

      Mrs. Avory concurred; but Valeria shook her head and changed colour. "Oh, I hope not!" she said, instant tears gathering in her eyes.

      Mrs. Avory looked hurt. "Why not, Valeria?" she said.

      "Oh, the smell," sobbed Valeria; "and the models … and I could not bear it. Oh, my Tom—my dear Tom!" And she sobbed convulsively, with her head on Mrs. Avory's shoulder, and with Edith's arm round her.

      Nancy screamed loud, and had to be taken away to the nursery, where Fräulein Müller, the German successor of Wilson, shook her.

      "Could it not be music?" said Valeria, after a while, drying her eyes dejectedly. "My mother was a great musician; she played the harp, and composed lovely songs. When she died, and I went to live in Milan with Uncle Giacomo, I used to play all Chopin's mazurkas and impromptus to him, although he said he hated music if anyone else played.... And, then, when I married …"—Valeria's sobs burst forth again—"dear Tom … said …"

      Edith intervened quickly. "I certainly think it СКАЧАТЬ