"After that," he said, presently, "I made no effort to bring her away.
The whole thing was so cold-blooded, so deliberate, so shameful, that I felt I had only to wipe her out of my memory, and leave her to her fate.
I stole out of the cathedral, and walked about here by the sea for ever so long, trying to get my thoughts straight. Then I remembered you, Ben; and the recollection of how this wanton had come between us and broken up our lives drove me wild. So I went up to the station and waited for you.
I felt you ought to know it all; and-and I thought, perhaps, that we might go back to England together."
"The Marchese Loredano!"
It was all that I could say; all that I could think. As Mat had just said of himself, I felt "like one stunned."
"There is one other thing I may as well tell you," he added, reluctantly, "if only to show you how false a woman can be. We-we were to have been married next month."
"_We_? Who? What do you mean?"
"I mean that we were to have been married-Gianetta and I."
A sudden storm of rage, of scorn, of incredulity, swept over me at this, and seemed to carry my senses away.
"_You_!" I cried. "Gianetta marry you! I don"t believe it."
"I wish I had not believed it," he replied, looking up as if puzzled by my vehemence. "But she promised me; and I thought, when she promised it, she meant it."
"She told me, weeks ago, that she would never be your wife!"
His colour rose, his brow darkened; when his answer came, it was as calm as the last.
"Indeed!" he said. "Then it is only one baseness more. She told me that she had refused you; and that was why we kept our engagement secret."
"Tell the truth, Mat Price," I said, well-nigh beside myself with suspicion. "Confess that every word of this is false! Confess that Gianetta will not listen to you, and that you are afraid I may succeed where you have failed. As perhaps I shall-as perhaps I shall, after all!"
"Are you mad?" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"That I believe it"s just a trick to get me away to England-that I don"t credit a syllable of your story. You"re a liar, and I hate you!"
He rose, and, laying one hand on the back of his chair, looked me sternly in the face.
"If you were not Benjamin Hardy," he said, deliberately, "I would thrash you within an inch of your life."
The words had no sooner pa.s.sed his lips than I sprang at him. I have never been able distinctly to remember what followed. A curse-a blow-a struggle-a moment of blind fury-a cry-a confusion of tongues-a circle of strange faces. Then I see Mat lying back in the arms of a bystander; myself trembling and bewildered-the knife dropping from my grasp; blood upon the floor; blood upon my hands; blood upon his shirt. And then I hear those dreadful words:
"O, Ben, you have murdered me!"
He did not die-at least, not there and then. He was carried to the nearest hospital, and lay for some weeks between life and death. His case, they said, was difficult and dangerous. The knife had gone in just below the collarbone, and pierced down into the lungs. He was not allowed to speak or turn-scarcely to breathe with freedom. He might not even lift his head to drink. I sat by him day and night all through that sorrowful time. I gave up my situation on the railway; I quitted my lodging in the Vicolo Balba; I tried to forget that such a woman as Gianetta Coneglia had ever drawn breath. I lived only for Mat; and he tried to live more, I believe, for my sake than his own. Thus, in the bitter silent hours of pain and penitence, when no hand but mine approached his lips or smoothed his pillow, the old friendship came back with even more than its old trust and faithfulness. He forgave me, fully and freely; and I would thankfully have given my life for him.
At length there came one bright spring morning, when, dismissed as convalescent, he tottered out through the hospital gates, leaning on my arm, and feeble as an infant. He was not cured; neither, as I then learned to my horror and anguish, was it possible that he ever could be cured. He might live, with care, for some years; but the lungs were injured beyond hope of remedy, and a strong or healthy man he could never be again. These, spoken aside to me, were the parting words of the chief physician, who advised me to take him further south without delay.
I took him to a little coast-town called Rocca, some thirty miles beyond Genoa-a sheltered lonely place along the Riviera, where the sea was even bluer than the sky, and the cliffs were green with strange tropical plants, cacti, and aloes, and Egyptian palms. Here we lodged in the house of a small tradesman; and Mat, to use his own words, "set to work at getting well in good earnest." But, alas! it was a work which no earnestness could forward. Day after day he went down to the beach, and sat for hours drinking the sea air and watching the sails that came and went in the offing. By-and-by he could go no further than the garden of the house in which we lived. A little later, and he spent his days on a couch beside the open window, waiting patiently for the end. Ay, for the end! It had come to that. He was fading fast, waning with the waning summer, and conscious that the Reaper was at hand. His whole aim now was to soften the agony of my remorse, and prepare me for what must shortly come.
"I would not live longer, if I could," he said, lying on his couch one summer evening, and looking up to the stars. "If I had my choice at this moment, I would ask to go. I should like Gianetta to know that I forgave her."
"She shall know it," I said, trembling suddenly from head to foot.
He pressed my hand.
"And you"ll write to father?"
"I will."
I had drawn a little back, that he might not see the tears raining down my cheeks; but he raised himself on his elbow, and looked round.
"Don"t fret, Ben," he whispered; laid his head back wearily upon the pillow-and so died.
And this was the end of it. This was the end of all that made life life to me. I buried him there, in hearing of the wash of a strange sea on a strange sh.o.r.e. I stayed by the grave till the priest and the bystanders were gone. I saw the earth filled in to the last sod, and the gravedigger stamp it down with his feet. Then, and not till then, I felt that I had lost him for ever-the friend I had loved, and hated, and slain. Then, and not till then, I knew that all rest, and joy, and hope were over for me. From that moment my heart hardened within me, and my life was filled with loathing. Day and night, land and sea, labour and rest, food and sleep, were alike hateful to me. It was the curse of Cain, and that my brother had pardoned me made it lie none the lighter.
Peace on earth was for me no more, and goodwill towards men was dead in my heart for ever. Remorse softens some natures; but it poisoned mine.
I hated all mankind; but above all mankind I hated the woman who had come between us two, and ruined both our lives.
He had bidden me seek her out, and be the messenger of his forgiveness.
I had sooner have gone down to the port of Genoa and taken upon me the serge cap and shotted chain of any galley-slave at his toil in the public works; but for all that I did my best to obey him. I went back, alone and on foot. I went back, intending to say to her, "Gianetta Coneglia, he forgave you; but G.o.d never will." But she was gone. The little shop was let to a fresh occupant; and the neighbours only knew that mother and daughter had left the place quite suddenly, and that Gianetta was supposed to be under the "protection" of the Marchese Loredano. How I made inquiries here and there-how I heard that they had gone to Naples-and how, being restless and reckless of my time, I worked my pa.s.sage in a French steamer, and followed her-how, having found the sumptuous villa that was now hers, I learned that she had left there some ten days and gone to Paris, where the Marchese was amba.s.sador for the Two Sicilies-how, working my pa.s.sage back again to Ma.r.s.eilles, and thence, in part by the river and in part by the rail, I made my way to Paris-how, day after day, I paced the streets and the parks, watched at the amba.s.sador"s gates, followed his carriage, and at last, after weeks of waiting, discovered her address-how, having written to request an interview, her servants spurned me from her door and flung my letter in my face-how, looking up at her windows, I then, instead of forgiving, solemnly cursed her with the bitterest curses my tongue could devise-and how, this done, I shook the dust of Paris from my feet, and became a wanderer upon the face of the earth, are facts which I have now no s.p.a.ce to tell.
The next six or eight years of my life were shifting and unsettled enough. A morose and restless man, I took employment here and there, as opportunity offered, turning my hand to many things, and caring little what I earned, so long as the work was hard and the change incessant.
First of all I engaged myself as chief engineer in one of the French steamers plying between Ma.r.s.eilles and Constantinople. At Constantinople I changed to one of the Austrian Lloyd"s boats, and worked for some time to and from Alexandria, Jaffa, and those parts. After that, I fell in with a party of Mr. Layard"s men at Cairo, and so went up the Nile and took a turn at the excavations of the mound of Nimroud. Then I became a working engineer on the new desert line between Alexandria and Suez; and by-and-by I worked my pa.s.sage out to Bombay, and took service as an engine fitter on one of the great Indian railways. I stayed a long time in India; that is to say, I stayed nearly two years, which was a long time for me; and I might not even have left so soon, but for the war that was declared just then with Russia. That tempted me. For I loved danger and hardship as other men love safety and ease; and as for my life, I had sooner have parted from it than kept it, any day. So I came straight back to England; betook myself to Portsmouth, where my testimonials at once procured me the sort of berth I wanted. I went out to the Crimea in the engine-room of one of her Majesty"s war steamers.
I served with the fleet, of course, while the war lasted; and when it was over, went wandering off again, rejoicing in my liberty. This time I went to Canada, and after working on a railway then in progress near the American frontier, I presently pa.s.sed over into the States; journeyed from north to south; crossed the Rocky Mountains; tried a month or two of life in the gold country; and then, being seized with a sudden, aching, unaccountable longing to revisit that solitary grave so far away on the Italian coast, I turned my face once more towards Europe.
Poor little grave! I found it rank with weeds, the cross half shattered, the inscription half effaced. It was as if no one had loved him, or remembered him. I went back to the house in which we had lodged together. The same people were still living there, and made me kindly welcome. I stayed with them for some weeks. I weeded, and planted, and trimmed the grave with my own hands, and set up a fresh cross in pure white marble. It was the first season of rest that I had known since I laid him there; and when at last I shouldered my knapsack and set forth again to battle with the world, I promised myself that, G.o.d willing, I would creep back to Rocca, when my days drew near to ending, and be buried by his side.
From hence, being, perhaps, a little less inclined than formerly for very distant parts, and willing to keep within reach of that grave, I went no further than Mantua, where I engaged myself as an engine-driver on the line, then not long completed, between that city and Venice. Somehow, although I had been trained to the working engineering, I preferred in these days to earn my bread by driving. I liked the excitement of it, the sense of power, the rush of the air, the roar of the fire, the flitting of the landscape. Above all, I enjoyed to drive a night express. The worse the weather, the better it suited with my sullen temper. For I was as hard, and harder than ever. The years had done nothing to soften me. They had only confirmed all that was blackest and bitterest in my heart.
I continued pretty faithful to the Mantua line, and had been working on it steadily for more than seven months when that which I am now about to relate took place.
It was in the month of March. The weather had been unsettled for some days past, and the nights stormy; and at one point along the line, near Ponte di Brenta, the waters had risen and swept away some seventy yards of embankment. Since this accident, the trains had all been obliged to stop at a certain spot between Padua and Ponte di Brenta, and the pa.s.sengers, with their luggage, had thence to be transported in all kinds of vehicles, by a circuitous country road, to the nearest station on the other side of the gap, where another train and engine awaited them.
This, of course, caused great confusion and annoyance, put all our time-tables wrong, and subjected the public to a large amount of inconvenience. In the meanwhile an army of navvies was drafted to the spot, and worked day and night to repair the damage. At this time I was driving two through trains each day; namely, one from Mantua to Venice in the early morning, and a return train from Venice to Mantua in the afternoon-a tolerably full day"s work, covering about one hundred and ninety miles of ground, and occupying between ten and eleven hours. I was therefore not best pleased when, on the third or fourth day after the accident, I was informed that, in addition to my regular allowance of work, I should that evening be required to drive a special train to Venice. This special train, consisting of an engine, a single carriage, and a break-van, was to leave the Mantua platform at eleven; at Padua the pa.s.sengers were to alight and find post-chaises waiting to convey them to Ponte di Brenta; at Ponte di Brenta another engine, carriage, and break-van were to be in readiness. I was charged to accompany them throughout.
"Corpo di Bacco," said the clerk who gave me my orders, "you need not look so black, man. You are certain of a handsome gratuity. Do you know who goes with you?"
"Not I."
"Not you, indeed! Why, it"s the Duca Loredano, the Neapolitan amba.s.sador."
"Loredano!" I stammered. "What Loredano? There was a Marchese-"
"Certo. He was the Marchese Loredano some years ago; but he has come into his dukedom since then."
"He must be a very old man by this time."
"Yes, he is old; but what of that? He is as hale, and bright, and stately as ever. You have seen him before?"
"Yes," I said, turning away; "I have seen him-years ago."