She laughed gayly. "A la bonne heure! You ARE a lover without knowing it! Your dignity will not allow you to believe that you are actually in love with me, but in spite of yourself you ARE--you know you are!"
I stood before her in almost somber silence. At last I said: "If YOU say so, contessa, then it must be so. I have had no experience in affairs of the heart, as they are called, and I find it difficult to give a name to the feelings which possess me; I am only conscious of a very strong wish to become the absolute master of your destiny." And involuntarily I clinched my hand as I spoke. She did not observe the action, but she answered the words with a graceful bend of the head and a smile.
"I could not have a better fortune," she said, "for I am sure my destiny will be all brightness and beauty with YOU to control and guide it!"
"It will be what you desire," I half muttered; then with an abrupt change of manner I said: "I will wish you goodnight, contessa. It grows late, and my state of health compels me to retire to rest early."
She rose from her seat and gave me a compa.s.sionate look.
"You are really a great sufferer then?" she inquired tenderly. "I am sorry! But perhaps careful nursing will quite restore you. I shall be so proud if I can help you to secure better health."
"Rest and happiness will no doubt do much for me," I answered, "still I warn you, cara mia, that in accepting me as your husband you take a broken-down man, one whose whims are legion and whose chronic state of invalidism may in time prove to be a burden on your young life. Are you sure your decision is a wise one?"
"Quite sure!" she replied firmly. "Do I not LOVE you! And you will not always be ailing--you look so strong."
"I am strong to a certain extent," I said, unconsciously straightening myself as I stood. "I have plenty of muscle as far as that goes, but my nervous system is completely disorganized. I--why, what is the matter?
Are you ill?"
For she had turned deathly pale, and her eyes look startled and terrified. Thinking she would faint, I extended my arms to save her from falling, but she put them aside with an alarmed yet appealing gesture.
"It is nothing," she murmured feebly, "a sudden giddiness--I thought--no matter what! Tell me, are you not related to the Romani family? When you drew yourself up just now you were so like--like FABIO! I fancied," and she shuddered, "that I saw his ghost!"
I supported her to a chair near the window, which I threw open for air, though the evening was cold.
"You are fatigued and overexcited," I said calmly, "your nature is too imaginative. No; I am not related to the Romanis, though possibly I may have some of their mannerisms. Many men are alike in these things. But you must not give way to such fancies. Rest perfectly quiet, you will soon recover."
And pouring out a gla.s.s of water I handed it to her. She sipped it slowly, leaning back in the fauteuil where I had placed her, and in silence we both looked out on the November night. There was a moon, but she was veiled by driving clouds, which ever and anon swept asunder to show her gleaming pallidly white, like the restless spirit of a deceived and murdered lady. A rising wind moaned dismally among the fading creepers and rustled the heavy branches of a giant cypress that stood on the lawn like a huge spectral mourner draped in black, apparently waiting for a forest funeral. Now and then a few big drops of rain fell-sudden tears wrung as though by force from the black heart of the sky. My wife shivered.
"Shut the window!" she said, glancing back at me where I stood behind her chair. "I am much better now. I was very silly. I do not know what came over me, but for the moment I felt afraid--horribly afraid!--of YOU!"
"That was not complimentary to your future husband," I remarked, quietly, as I closed and fastened the window in obedience to her request. "Should I not insist upon an apology?"
She laughed nervously, and played with her ring of rose-brilliants.
"It is not yet too late," I resumed, "if on second thoughts you would rather not marry me, you have only to say so. I shall accept my fate with equanimity, and shall not blame you."
At this she seemed quite alarmed, and rising, laid her hand pleadingly on my arm.
"Surely you are not offended?" she said. "I was not really afraid of you, you know--it was a stupid fancy--I cannot explain it. But I am quite well now, and I am only TOO happy. Why, I would not lose your love for all the world--you MUST believe me!"
And she touched my hand caressingly with her lips. I withdrew it gently, and stroked her hair with an almost parental tenderness; then I said quietly:
"If so, we are agreed, and all is well. Let me advise you to take a long night"s rest: your nerves are weak and somewhat shaken. You wish me to keep our engagement secret?"
She thought for a moment, then answered musingly:
"For the present perhaps it would be best. Though," and she laughed, "it would be delightful to see all the other women jealous and envious of my good fortune! Still, if the news were told to any of our friends--who knows?--it might accidentally reach Guido, and--"
"I understand! You may rely upon my discretion. Good-night, contessa!"
"You may call me Nina," she murmured, softly.
"NINA, then," I said, with some effort, as I lightly kissed her.
"Good-night!--may your dreams be of me!" She responded to this with a gratified smile, and as I left the room she waved her hand in a parting salute. My diamonds flashed on it like a small circlet of fire; the light shed through the rose-colored lamps that hung from the painted ceiling fell full on her exquisite loveliness, softening it into ethereal radiance and delicacy, and when I strode forth from the house into the night air heavy with the threatening gloom of coming tempest, the picture of that fair face and form flitted before me like a mirage--the glitter of her hair flashed on my vision like little snakes of fire--her lithe hands seemed to beckon me--her lips had left a scorching heat on mine. Distracted with the thoughts that tortured me, I walked on and on for hours. The storm broke at last; the rain poured in torrents, but heedless of wind and weather, I wandered on like a forsaken fugitive. I seemed to be the only human being left alive in a world of wrath and darkness. The rush and roar of the blast, the angry noise of waves breaking hurriedly on the sh.o.r.e, the swirling showers that fell on my defenseless head--all these things were unfelt, unheard by me. There are times in a man"s life when mere physical feeling grows numb under the pressure of intense mental agony-when the indignant soul, smarting with the experience of some vile injustice, forgets for a little its narrow and poor house of clay. Some such mood was upon me then, I suppose, for in the very act of walking I was almost unconscious of movement. An awful solitude seemed to encompa.s.s me--a silence of my own creating. I fancied that even the angry elements avoided me as I pa.s.sed; that there was nothing, nothing in all the wide universe but myself and a dark brooding horror called Vengeance. All suddenly, the mists of my mind cleared; I moved no longer in a deaf, blind stupor. A flash of lightning danced vividly before my eyes, followed by a crashing peal of thunder, I saw to what end of a wild journey I had come! Those heavy gates--that undefined stretch of land--those ghostly glimmers of motionless white like spectral mile-stones emerging from the gloom--I knew it all too well--it was the cemetery! I looked through the iron palisades with the feverish interest of one who watches the stage curtain rise on the last scene of a tragedy. The lightning sprung once more across the sky, and showed me for a brief second the distant marble outline of the Romani vault.
There the drama began--where would it end? Slowly, slowly there flitted into my thoughts the face of my lost child--the young, serious face as it had looked when the calm, preternaturally wise smile of Death had rested upon it; and then a curious feeling of pity possessed me--pity that her little body should be lying stiffly out there, not in the vault, but under the wet sod, in such a relentless storm of rain. I wanted to take her up from that cold couch--to carry her to some home where there should be light and heat and laughter--to warm her to life again within my arms; and as my brain played with these foolish fancies, slow hot tears forced themselves into my eyes and scalded my cheeks as they fell. These tears relieved me--gradually the tightly strung tension of my nerves relaxed, and I recovered my usual composure by degrees. Turning deliberately away from the beckoning grave-stones, I walked back to the city through the thick of the storm, this time with an a.s.sured step and a knowledge of where I was going. I did not reach my hotel till past midnight, but this was not late for Naples, and the curiosity of the fat French hall-porter was not so much excited by the lateness of my arrival as by the disorder of my apparel.
"Ah, Heaven!" he cried; "that monsieur the distinguished should have been in such a storm all unprotected! Why did not monsieur send for his carriage?" I cut short his exclamations by dropping five francs into his ever-ready hand, a.s.suring him that I had thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of a walk in bad weather, whereat he smiled and congratulated me as much as he had just commiserated me. On reaching my own rooms, my valet Vincenzo stared at my dripping and disheveled condition, but was discreetly mute. He quickly a.s.sisted me to change my wet clothes for a warm dressing-gown, and then brought a gla.s.s of mulled port wine, but performed these duties with such an air of unbroken gravity that I was inwardly amused while I admired the fellow"s reticence. When I was about to retire for the night, I tossed him a napoleon. He eyed it musingly and inquiringly; then he asked:
"Your excellency desires to purchase something?"
"Your silence, my friend, that is all!" I replied, with a laugh.
"Understand me, Vincenzo, you will serve yourself and me best by obeying implicitly, and asking no questions. Fortunate is the servant who, accustomed to see his master drunk every night, swears to all outsiders that he has never served so sober and discreet a gentleman!
That is your character, Vincenzo--keep to it, and we shall not quarrel." He smiled gravely, and pocketed my piece of gold without a word--like a true Tuscan as he was. The sentimental servant, whose fine feelings will not allow him to accept an extra "tip," is, you may be sure, a humbug. I never believed in such a one. Labor can always command its price, and what so laborious in this age as to be honest?
What so difficult as to keep silence on other people"s affairs? Such herculean tasks deserve payment! A valet who is generously bribed, in addition to his wages, can be relied on; if underpaid, all heaven and earth will not persuade him to hold his tongue. Left alone at last in my sleeping chamber, I remained for some time before actually going to bed. I took off the black spectacles which served me so well, and looked at myself in the mirror with some curiosity. I never permitted Vincenzo to enter my bedroom at night, or before I was dressed in the morning, lest he should surprise me without these appendages which were my chief disguise, for in such a case I fancy even his studied composure would have given way. For, disburdened of my smoke-colored gla.s.ses, I appeared what I was, young and vigorous in spite of my white beard and hair. My face, which had been worn and haggard at first, had filled up and was healthily colored; while my eyes, the spokesmen of my thoughts, were bright with the clearness and fire of const.i.tutional strength and physical well-being. I wondered, as I stared moodily at my own reflection, how it was that I did not look ill. The mental suffering I continually underwent, mingled though it was with a certain gloomy satisfaction, should surely have left more indelible traces on my countenance. Yet it has been proved that it is not always the hollow-eyed, sallow and despairing-looking persons who are really in sharp trouble--these are more often bilious or dyspeptic, and know no more serious grief than the incapacity to gratify their appet.i.tes for the high-flavored delicacies of the table. A man may be endowed with superb physique, and a const.i.tution that is in perfect working order--his face and outward appearance may denote the most harmonious action of the life principle within him--and yet his nerves may be so finely strung that he may be capable of suffering acuter agony in his mind than if his body were to be hacked slowly to pieces by jagged knives, and it will leave no mark on his features while YOUTH still has hold on his flesh and blood.
So it was with me; and I wondered what SHE--Nina--would say, could she behold me, unmasked as it were, in the solitude of my own room. This thought roused another in my mind--another at which I smiled grimly. I was an engaged man! Engaged to marry my own wife; betrothed for the second time to the same woman! What a difference between this and my first courtship of her! THEN, who so great a fool as I--who so adoring, pa.s.sionate and devoted! NOW, who so darkly instructed, who so cold, so absolutely pitiless! The climax to my revenge was nearly reached. I looked through the coming days as one looks through a telescope out to sea, and I could watch the end approaching like a phantom ship--neither slow nor fast, but steadily and silently. I was able to calculate each event in its due order, and I knew there was no fear of failure in the final result. Nature itself--the sun, moon and stars, the sweeping circle of the seasons--all seem to aid in the cause of rightful justice. Man"s duplicity may succeed in withholding a truth for a time, but in the end it must win its way. Once resolve, and then determine to carry out that resolve, and it is astonishing to note with what marvelous ease everything makes way for you, provided there be no innate weakness in yourself which causes you to hesitate. I had formerly been weak, I knew, very weak--else I had never been fooled by wife and friend; but now, now my strength was as the strength of a demon working within me. My hand had already closed with an iron grip on two false unworthy lives, and had I not sworn "never to relax, never to relent" till my vengeance was accomplished? I had! Heaven and earth had borne witness to my vow, and now held me to its stern fulfillment.
CHAPTER XX.
Winter, or what the Neapolitans accept as winter, came on apace. For some time past the air had been full of that mild chill and vaporous murkiness, which, not cold enough to be bracing, sensibly lowered the system and depressed the spirits. The careless and jovial temperament of the people, however, was never much affected by the change of seasons--they drank more hot coffee than usual, and kept their feet warm by dancing from midnight up to the small hours of the morning. The cholera was a thing of the past--the cleansing of the city, the sanitary precautions, which had been so much talked about and recommended in order to prevent another outbreak in the coming year, were all forgotten and neglected, and the laughing populace tripped lightly over the graves of its dead hundreds as though they were odorous banks of flowers. "Oggi! Oggi!" is their cry--to-day, to-day!
Never mind what happened yesterday, or what will happen to-morrow--leave that to i signori Santi and la Signora Madonna! And after all there is a grain of reason in their folly, for many of the bitterest miseries of man grow out of a fatal habit of looking back or looking forward, and of never living actually in the full-faced present. Then, too, Carnival was approaching; Carnival, which, though denuded of many of its best and brightest features, still reels through the streets of Naples with something of the picturesque madness that in old times used to accompany its prototype, the Feast of Bacchus. I was reminded of this coming festivity on the morning of the 21st of December, when I noted some unusual attempts on the part of Vincenzo to control his countenance, that often, in spite of his efforts, broadened into a sunny smile as though some humorous thought had flitted across his mind. He betrayed himself at last by asking me demurely whether I purposed taking any part in the carnival? I smiled and shook my head.
Vincenzo looked dubious, but finally summoned up courage to say:
"Will the eccellenza permit--"
"You to make a fool of yourself?" I interrupted, "by all means! Take your own time, enjoy the fun as much as you please; I promise you I will ask no account of your actions."
He was much gratified, and attended to me with even more punctiliousness than usual. As he prepared my breakfast I asked him:
"By the way, when does the carnival begin?"
"On the 26th," he answered, with a slight air of surprise. "Surely the eccellenza knows."
"Yes, yes," I said, impatiently. "I know, but I had forgotten. I am not young enough to keep the dates of these follies in my memory. What letters have you there?"
He handed me a small tray full of different shaped missives, some from fair ladies who "desired the honor of my company," others from tradesmen, "praying the honor of my custom," all from male and female toadies as usual, I thought contemptuously, as I turned them over, when my glance was suddenly arrested by one special envelope, square in form and heavily bordered with black, on which the postmark "Roma" stood out distinctly. "At last!" I thought, and breathed heavily. I turned to my valet, who was giving the final polish to my breakfast cup and saucer:
"You may leave the room, Vincenzo," I said, briefly. He bowed, the door opened and shut noiselessly--he was gone.
Slowly I broke the seal of that fateful letter; a letter from Guido Ferrari, a warrant self-signed, for his own execution!
"My best friend," so it ran, "you will guess by the "black flag" on my envelope the good news I have to give you. My uncle is dead AT LAST, thank G.o.d! and I am left his sole heir unconditionally. I am free, and shall of course return to Naples immediately, that is, as soon as some trifling law business has been got through with the executors. I believe I can arrange my return for the 23d or 24th instant, but will telegraph to you the exact day, and, if possible, the exact hour. Will you oblige me by NOT announcing this to the countess, as I wish to take her by surprise. Poor girl! she will have often felt lonely, I am sure, and I want to see the first beautiful look of rapture and astonishment in her eyes! You can understand this, can you not, amico, or does it seem to you a folly? At any rate, I should consider it very churlish were I to keep YOU in ignorance of my coming home, and I know you will humor me in my desire that the news should be withheld from Nina, How delighted she will be, and what a joyous carnival we will have this winter! I do not think I ever felt more light of heart; perhaps it is because I am so much heavier in pocket. I am glad of the money, as it places me on a more equal footing with HER, and though all her letters to me have been full of the utmost tenderness, still I feel she will think even better of me, now I am in a position somewhat nearer to her own. As for you, my good conte, on my return I shall make it my first duty to pay back with interest the rather large debt I owe to you--thus my honor will be satisfied, and you, I am sure, will have a better opinion of
"Yours to command,