THE LUCK OF THE CAPTAIN
It is easy to say that the Captain should not have been so shocked, and
that it would have been becoming in him to remember his own
transgression committed in the little hut in the hollow of the hill.
But human nature is not, as a rule at least, so constituted that the
immediate or chief effect of the sight of another's wrong-doing is to
recall our own. The scene before him outraged all the Captain's ideas
of how his neighbours ought to conduct themselves, and (perhaps a more
serious thing) swept away all memory of the caution contained in the
Countess's letter.
The Count rose with a smile, still holding the Countess by the hand.
"My dear friend," he cried, "we 're delighted to see you. But what?
You 've been in the wars!"
Dieppe made no answer. His stare attracted his host's attention.
"Ah," he pursued, with a laugh, "you wonder to see us like this? We
are treating you too much _en famille_! But indeed you ought to be
glad to see it. We owe it almost all to you. No, she would n't be
here but for you, my friend. Would you, dear?"
"No, I--I don't suppose I should."
Did they refer to Dieppe's assisting her across the ford? If he had
but known--
"Come," urged the Count, "give me your hand, and let my wife and me--"
"What?" cried the Captain, loudly, in unmistakable surprise.
The Count looked from him to the Countess. The Countess began to
laugh. Her husband seemed as bewildered as Dieppe.
"Oh, dear," laughed the Countess, "I believe Captain Dieppe did n't
know me!"'
"Did n't know you?"
"He 's only seen me once, and then in the dark, you know. Oh, what did
you suspect? But you recognise me now? You will believe that I really
am Andrea's wife?"
The Captain could not catch the cue. It meant to him so complete a
reversal of what he had so unhesitatingly believed, such an utter
upsetting of all his notions. For if this were in truth the Countess
of Fieramondi, why, who was the other lady? His want of quickness
threatened at last to ruin the scheme which he had, although
unconsciously, done so much to help; for the Count was growing puzzled.
"I--I--Of course I know the Countess of Fieramondi," stammered Dieppe.
The Countess held out her hand gracefully. There could, at least, be
little harm in kissing it. Dieppe walked across the room and paid his
homage. As he rose from this social observance he heard a voice from
the doorway saying:
"Are n't you glad to see me, Andrea?"
The Captain shot round in time to see the Count paying the courtesy
which he had himself just paid--and paying it to a lady whom he did
know very well. The next instant the Count turned to him, saying:
"Captain, let me present you to my wife's cousin, the Countess Lucia
Bonavia d'Orano. She has arrived to-night from Rome. How did you
leave the Bishop of Mesopotamia, Lucia?"
But the Countess interposed very quickly.
"Now, Andrea, you promised me not to bother Lucia about her journey,
and especially not about the Bishop. You don't want to talk about it,
do you, Lucia?"
"Not at all," said Lucia, and the Count laughed rather mockingly. "And
you need n't introduce me to Captain Dieppe, either," she went on. "We
've met before."
"Met before?" The Count turned to Dieppe. "Why, where was that?"
"At the ford over the river." It was Lucia now who interposed. "He
helped me across. Oh, I 'll tell you all about it."
She began her narrative, which she related with particular fulness.
For a while Dieppe watched her. Then he happened to glance towards the
Countess. He found that lady's eyes set on him with an intentness full
of meaning. The Count's attention was engrossed by Lucia. Emilia gave
a slight but emphatic nod. A slow smile dawned on Captain Dieppe's
face.
"Indeed," ended Lucia, "I 'm not at all sure that I don't owe my life
to Captain Dieppe." And she bestowed on the Captain a very kindly
glance. The Count turned to speak to his wife. Lucia nodded sharply
at the Captain.
"You were--er--returning from Rome?" he asked.
"From visiting the Bishop of Mesopotamia," called the Countess.
"Yes," said Lucia. "I should never have got across but for you."
"But tell me about yourself, Dieppe," said the Count. "You 're really
in a sad state, my dear fellow."
The Captain felt that the telling of his story was ticklish work. The
Count sat down on the sofa; the two ladies stood behind it, their eyes
were fixed on the Captain in warning glances.
"Well, I got a message from a fellow to-night to meet him on the hill
outside the village--by the Cross there, you know. I fancied I knew
what he wanted, so I went."
"That was after you parted from me, I suppose?" asked Emilia.
"Yes," said the Captain, boldly. "It was as I supposed. He was after
my papers. There was another fellow with him. I--I don't know who--"
"Well, I daresay he did n't mention his name," suggested Lucia.
"No, no, he did n't," agreed the Captain, hastily. "I knew only
Guillaume--and that name 's an alias of a certain M. Sevier, a police
spy, who had his reasons for being interested in me. Well, my dear
friend, Guillaume tried to bribe me. Then with the aid of--" Just in
time the Captain checked himself--"of the other rascal he--er--attacked
me--"
"All this was before you met me, I suppose?" inquired Lucia.
"Certainly, certainly," assented the Captain. "I had been pursuing the
second fellow. I chased him across the river--"
"You caught him!" cried the Count.
"No. He escaped me and made off in the direction of Sasellano."
"And the first one--this Guillaume?"
"When I got back he was gone," said the Captain. "But I bear marks of
a scratch which he gave me, you perceive."
He looked at the Count. The Count appeared excellently well satisfied
with the story. He looked at the ladies; they were smiling and nodding
approval.
"Deuce take it," thought the Captain, "I seem to have hit on the right
lies by chance!"
"All ends most happily," cried the Count. "Happily for you, my dear
friend, and most happily for me. And here is Lucia with us again too!
In truth it 's a most auspicious evening. I propose that we allow
Lucia time to change her travelling-dress, and Dieppe a few moments to
wash off the stains of battle, and then we 'll celebrate the joyous
occasion with a little supper."
The Count's proposal met with no opposition--least of all from Dieppe,
who suddenly remembered that he was famished.
The next morning, the garden of the Castle presented a pleasing sight.
Workmen were busily engaged in pulling down the barricade, while the
Count and Countess sat on a seat hard by. Sometimes they watched the
operations, sometimes the Count read in a confidential and tender voice
from a little sheaf of papers which he held in his hand. When he
ceased reading, the Countess would murmur, "Beautiful!" and the Count
shake his head in a poet's affectation of dissatisfaction with his
verse. Then they would fall to watching the work of demolition again.
At last the Count remarked:
"But where are Lucia and our friend Dieppe?"
"Walking together down there by the stream," answered the Countess.
And, after a pause, she turned to him, and, in a very demure fashion,
hazarded a suggestion. "Do you know, Andrea, I think Lucia and Captain
Dieppe are inclined to take to one another very much?"
"It 's an uncommonly sudden attachment," laughed the Count.
"Yes," agreed his wife, biting her lip. "It 's certainly sudden. But
consider in what an interesting way their acquaintance began! Do you
know anything about him?"
"I know he 's a gentleman, and a clever fellow," returned the Count.
"And from time to time he makes some money, I believe."
"Lucia's got some money," mused the Countess.
Down by the stream they walked, side by side, showing indeed (as the
Countess remarked) every sign of taking to one another very much.
"You really think we shall hear no more of Paul de Roustache?" asked
Lucia.
"I 'm sure of it; and I think M. Guillaume will let me alone too.
Indeed there remains only one question."
"What's that?" asked Lucia.
"How you are going to treat me," said the Captain. "Think what I have
suffered already!"
"I could n't help that," she cried. "My word was absolutely pledged to
Emilia. 'Whatever happens,' I said to her, 'I promise I won't tell
anybody that I 'm not the Countess.' If I had n't promised that, she
could n't have gone to Rome at all, you know. She 'd have died sooner
than let Andrea think she had left the Castle."
"You remember what you said to her. Do you remember what you said to
me?"
"When?"
"When we talked in the hut in the hollow of the hill. You said you
would be all that you could be to me."
"Did I say as much as that? And when I was Countess of Fieramondi!
Oh!"
"Yes, and you let me do something--even when you were Countess of
Fieramondi, too!"
"That was not playing the part well."
The Captain looked just a little doubtful, and Lucia laughed.
"Anyhow," said he, "you 're not Countess of Fieramondi now."
She looked up at him.
"You 're a very devout young lady," he continued, "who goes all the way
to Rome to consult the Bishop of Mesopotamia. Now, that"--the Captain
took both her hands in his--"is exactly the sort of wife for me."
"Monsieur le Capitaine, I have always thought you a courageous man, and
now I am sure of it. You have seen--and aided--all my deceit; and now
you want to marry me!"
"A man can't know his wife too well," observed the Captain. "Come, let
me go and communicate my wishes to Count Andrea."
"What? Why, you only met me for the first time last night!"
"Oh, but I can explain--"
"That you had previously fallen in love with the Countess of
Fieramondi? For your own sake and ours too--"
"That's very true," admitted the Captain. "I must wait a little, I
suppose."
"You must wait to tell Andrea that you love me, but--"
"Precisely!" cried the Captain. "There is no reason in the world why
I should wait to tell you."
And then and there he told her again in happiness the story which had
seemed so tragic when it was wrung from him in the shepherd's hut.
"Undoubtedly, I am a very fortunate fellow," he cried, with his arm
round Lucia's waist. "I come to this village by chance. By chance I
am welcomed here instead of having to go to the inn. By chance I am
the means of rescuing a charming lady from a sad embarrassment. I am
enabled to send a rascal to the right-about. I succeed in preserving
my papers. I inflict a most complete and ludicrous defeat on that
crafty old fellow, Guillaume Sevier! And, by heaven! when I do what
seems the unluckiest thing of all, when, against my will, I fall in
love with my dear friend's wife, when my honour is opposed to my
happiness, when I am reduced to the saddest plight--why, I say, by
heaven, she turns out not to be his wife at all! Lucia, am I not born
under a lucky star?"
"I think I should be very foolish not to--to do my best to share your
luck," said she.
"I am the happiest fellow in the world," he declared. "And that," he
added, as though it were a rare and precious coincidence, "with my
conscience quite at peace."
Perhaps it is rare, and perhaps the Captain's conscience had no right
to be quite at peace. For certainly he had not told all the truth to
his dear friend, the Count of Fieramondi. Yet since no more was heard
of Paul de Roustache, and the Countess's journey remained an unbroken
secret, these questions of casuistry need not be raised. After all, is
it for a man to ruin the tranquillity of a home for the selfish
pleasure of a conscience quite at peace?
But as to the consciences of those two very ingenious young ladies, the
Countess of Fieramondi, and her cousin, Countess Lucia, the problem is
more difficult. The Countess never confessed, and Lucia never
betrayed, the secret. Yet they were both devout! Indeed, the problem
seems insoluble.
Stay, though! Perhaps the counsel and aid of the Bishop of Mesopotamia
(_in partibus_) were invoked again. His lordship's position, that you
must commit your sin before you can be absolved from the guilt of it,
not only appears most logical in itself, but was, in the circumstances
of the case, not discouraging.