Nature was merciful to Montalto. Strong men have lived paralysed
for years after a stroke of apoplexy, in full consciousness, yet
unable to communicate their thoughts to others; but Montalto was
not very strong, and he never awoke from the sleep in which his
wife found him. On the fifth day the heart stopped beating, and
that was the end.
There was no pain, no lucid moment, no harrowing farewell. It was
the woman who endured all that a woman can bear, during those five
days, not knowing but that he might come back to drag out a long
and miserable existence, not daring to pray that he might die, lest
she should be praying for her own freedom, yet for his sake not
daring to ask that he might live and suffer. It was not until all
was over that the last chance of that went out with life itself.
Maria had refused to see any one. Three times Giuliana came to the
palace and asked if she could be of any use, but the answer was
always the same: the Countess thanked her friend, but could not see
her. Monsignor Saracinesca came twice, and he was admitted to the
sickroom; but Maria would not be present, and Don Ippolito made no
attempt to disturb her privacy. It was only at rare intervals that
she left her husband’s side for a short time, until he was dead.
Each day, with the thought of imposing a duty upon herself which
he would expect, she bent down and kissed his forehead; when it was
finished she kissed him once more, she knelt beside his body half
an hour, and then went quietly out of the room.
She had done what she could; so far as in her lay, the expiation
was complete; she might have done a little more if life had
lingered a little longer; yet, as she closed her eyes, she asked
herself whether she had done enough, and afterwards she remembered
fancying that a cool breath of peace fanned her burning forehead
for a moment before she fell asleep on a little lounge in her
dressing-room.
She awoke in bed at night, and it seemed strange that there should
be a soft light in the room, for she had always slept in the dark.
Perhaps the light was only in her imagination, after all, for when
she tried to turn her head on the pillow the glimmer seemed to go
out and she fell asleep again. Once more she awoke, and it was
still there, and a nursing sister with a nun’s wimple and a dark
blue veil was leaning over her. She tried to speak, but she was
so very weak that she heard no sound, but only a sort of lisping
whisper. The nurse bent nearer to her lips, and she tried to speak
again.
‘Have I been asleep long?’ She could just whisper that.
‘You have been very dangerously ill for a long time. You must not
try to talk.’
The soft dark eyes looked up to the gentle face in wonder, and the
lips moved again.
‘Leone?’ Only that word as a question.
‘Quite, quite well, in Frascati with his tutor. We exchange news
every day.’
Sleep again, quick and soft, and after that waking and sleep by day
and night, with gradual return to thought and life, till she knew
what had happened to her, and was at last well enough to see Leone
for a few minutes.
He looked strangely tall in his new black clothes, and when she had
kissed him and had held his face before her a moment between her
beautiful thin hands, he gazed at her a long time very thoughtfully.
‘The doctors said you were going to die,’ he observed at last, ‘but
the Captain said you wouldn’t. I believed the Captain.’
‘What captain, dear?’
‘Why, Captain Castiglione, of course. He’s my friend now.’
A faint warmth rose in Maria’s wasted cheeks.
‘I thought you had been in Frascati,’ she said.
‘Yes. But the Captain has been out to see me three times a week.
Didn’t they tell you? Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He said he
thought you wouldn’t mind, because it was rather lonely for me out
there with a man like my tutor, who can’t ride and had a broken
arm. He’s given me a dog. We’re great friends. Papa was going to
give me a dog, you know.’
The last sentence was spoken in a lower tone, very seriously and
with a sort of awe.
‘Yes, dear,’ Maria answered gravely, for she did not know what to
say.
The handsome boy sat down and held her white hands affectionately
in his brown ones, and his bright blue eyes gazed quietly at her.
‘I miss papa dreadfully,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’
‘His death has made a very great change in my life,’ she answered.
‘I couldn’t believe it at first,’ said Leone. ‘When I did, I just
couldn’t stand it. I went and shut myself up in my room all day and
thought about him.’
‘Perhaps that was the best thing you could have done, dear.’
‘What did you do after he was dead, mother? I want to know.’
‘I fell ill at once,’ Maria answered. ‘I thought I was only falling
asleep, and I knew nothing for more than a fortnight.’
‘Yes. But before that, did you cry much?’
‘No, dear. I was quite worn out, for I had scarcely left him since
he had fallen ill. When he did not breathe any more, I kissed him
and prayed, and then came to my own room. After that I remember
nothing.’
Leone looked at her thoughtfully and rather sadly.
‘I wanted to know,’ he said after a while.
Maria’s maid came to the door and said the tutor was waiting to
take his Excellency for his afternoon walk. The nurse had sent her,
thinking that Maria would be tired.
‘Why do they call me “Excellency” every minute?’ Leone asked.
‘They hardly ever used to. Of course, I’m growing up--but still----’
‘Though you are only a boy, they look upon you as the master now,
because there is no one else.’
‘Am I really the master of Montalto, as papa said I should be?’
‘I suppose so, dear.’ Maria spoke a little wearily. ‘You must go
out for your walk now, and to-morrow you shall come again and stay
longer.’
‘Yes, much longer! Do you think it would cheer you up to see my dog
to-morrow? You must be dreadfully lonely all day. I’ll lend him to
you, if you like.’
Maria smiled.
‘Bring him with you to-morrow, if he is a cheerful little dog,’ she
answered, and she nearly laughed for the first time in many weeks.
Leone looked at her with satisfaction.
‘You’re going to get well very soon,’ he said in a tone of
patronising conviction. ‘Good-bye.’
She watched him as he crossed the room to the door. He was thinner
and taller, but he looked square and tough. He already had the
figure of a little man, and at the back of his neck, above the
broad turned-down collar, the short and thick brown hair seemed
trying to curl more vigorously than ever. Maria saw it and shut her
eyes.
She was still very weak, for it sometimes takes a long time to
recover from brain fever, but she gained daily. Giuliana Parenzo
came and spent long hours in the room, for she was a healthy,
soothing woman, who made no noise and told Maria just how she
wanted to know, asking no questions about how she felt.
At last they began to drive out together, near the end of February,
when the almond-trees were in blossom and there was a breath of
spring in the air.
One day they were in the Campagna and almost in sight of Acqua
Santa, on the New Appian, and neither had spoken for some time.
Giuliana broke the silence.
‘I have a great admiration for you, Maria,’ she said. ‘I mean,
quite apart from our friendship. I did you a great injustice in my
thoughts at the beginning of the winter, and I want to tell you how
sorry I am. You have been very brave and good all through this.’
‘Thank you, Giuliana,’ Maria touched her friend’s hand
affectionately.
‘I’m not the only one of your friends who thinks so, either. Shall
I repeat something that Ippolito Saracinesca told me the other day?’
‘If it is kind, tell me. I am not quite strong yet.’
‘It may make a difference to you to know it. It ought to please
you. Do you remember that Ippolito and I dined with you the night
before your husband fell ill?’
‘Indeed I do!’
‘And they argued, as usual, but afterwards they talked in a low
voice.’
‘I remember that too.’
‘Poor Diego was talking about you. He said that whatever trouble
there had ever been between you was forgotten and forgiven. He said
that you had made him absolutely and unspeakably happy ever since
he had come back to you, and that he wished he could have made your
life such a heaven as you had made his; that his unfortunate temper
must have often irritated you and hurt you, but that he believed
you had always forgiven him.’
Maria’s eyes filled with tears, as they sometimes did.
‘Thank you for telling me that,’ she said. ‘It does make a
difference.’
‘Ippolito never saw him conscious again. Those must have been
almost the last words he ever spoke.’
‘Almost,’ echoed Maria, remembering that night.
‘But there is something else,’ Giuliana said. ‘Shall I tell you?
There is just one thing more.’
‘Does Don Ippolito wish me to know it? He was Diego’s best friend.’
‘Yes. He thinks it will be easier--I mean, it will seem more
natural--if it comes through me. Ippolito will never feel that he
knows you very well. You understand, don’t you, dear?’
‘Certainly. Go on, please.’ Maria prepared herself for a shock.
‘Last Christmas Eve Diego went to see him, and placed in his hands
a letter, to be given to you in case of his death. We have not
thought you were well enough to have it until now. Your husband
told Ippolito what is in the letter in case it were ever lost, and
Ippolito thought best to tell me, so that you may know beforehand
what it is about. You are strong enough now.’
‘Yes,’ Maria said, but she turned a shade whiter. ‘I can bear
anything now!’
‘It ought to relieve you rather than pain you,’ answered Giuliana.
‘The letter is meant to give you his full consent to marry again,
in case he died. But he added----’
Telemaco suddenly checked his horses to a walk at the steep
hill, and it was impossible for Giuliana to go on talking in the
low phaeton without being heard, unless she spoke in a foreign
language. Maria grew whiter.
‘A little faster,’ said Giuliana to the coachman. ‘You can stop at
the top of the hill.’
The New Appian Road is paved throughout, and the horses’ hoofs
began to clatter on the stones again. Maria waited to hear the rest.
‘He added that if you married again he thought it would be your
duty to marry Baldassare--your duty before God and your duty to
society. Yes, dear, what did you say?’
Maria had uttered a little exclamation and had turned her face
quite away.
For the first time since her friend had known her the tears
overflowed, and Giuliana, leaning forwards a little, could just see
two glistening drops on her pale cheek. When Maria turned again she
shook her head slowly.
‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It is too much, it is too generous.
I must never marry him. I must never think of him again. I promised
Diego that I would tear the memory from my heart, and I must. God
help me, for I must.’
Giuliana opened her little bag, a marvel of workmanship fresh from
Paris.
‘Here is the letter, Maria,’ she said. ‘You must have it now, for
it freely gives you back the promise you made. Read it when you are
alone.’
Maria took the letter in silence; and under her black fur-lined
cloak, heavy with crape, she loosened her dress and laid the sealed
envelope upon her bare neck, a little to the left, where she had
laid the letter the monk had given her from Castiglione, some two
months ago, that seemed like ages of ages now.
Just then the horses stopped at the top of the hill, where a lane
turns to the right, leading to Acqua Santa and the golf links. A
large closed carriage with black horses and plain black liveries
was coming rapidly from the opposite direction.
As it passed the phaeton Giuliana and Maria bowed far forwards, for
there was a cardinal inside whom they both knew, an old man and a
good one. In answer to their salutation he smiled, and Maria saw
the aged hand, white and ungloved, lifted at the open window to
give a blessing that might have seemed prophetic just then.
* * * * *
Months have passed since that afternoon and many things have
happened. Casalmaggiore never got the Andalusian mare, for only
Leone rides her, and he would not part with her for anything.
Monsieur de Maurienne never came back from Paris, but managed to be
sent to Vienna instead, and Donna Teresa is still an unprotected
widow. The Countess of Montalto is herself again, and still in
half-mourning for her husband.
During these hot August days she is living quietly at Montalto
with Leone and his tutor; for she felt that if she did not come to
the place now it would be harder to come back later and face its
associations; and besides, Leone is to be the master when he is
grown up, and he must begin to learn what that means.
He comes in at tea-time, a straight, square boy in well-worn riding
clothes, his fox-terrier at his heels.
‘I wish the Captain were here, mama,’ he says suddenly. ‘It would
be such fun to ride together. I don’t see why you shouldn’t ask him
for a few days.’
‘Not now, little man,’ says Maria, pouring out the boy’s tea. ‘But
perhaps he may come another year and stay a long time.’
She rises and sets the cup on a little table beside him with a good
slice of bread and butter, and she stands over him as if to make
him eat and drink. But when he bends his handsome head she stoops
and kisses the back of his sturdy neck where the short brown hair
is always doing its very best to curl.
* * * * *
NOTE.--The ‘Piedmont Lancers,’ to which Castiglione belonged,
are purely imaginary, and are by no means meant for the
‘Piedmont Regiment,’ which would be more rightly classed with
the Dragoons.
Transcribers Notes:
Period spelling and word usage (e.g. forwards instead of forward)
were retained but obvious punctuation errors, letters added,
omitted, or reversed by the printer were corrected. Consistent with
the usage of the time, several words are hyphenated in one instance
and not in another. These differences were retained.
The original Table of Contents, which included two simple entries
for Part I and Part II, has been enhanced to include the Chapters.
This facilitates the navigation of eBooks.