THE CORSICAN
LOVERS
A STORY OF THE VENDETTA
BY
CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN
Author of “QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER,” “BLENNERHASSETT,”
ETC.
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906
By
B. W. DODGE & COMPANY
NEW YORK
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BROTHERLY LOVE 1
II “A MAN MUST HAVE A WIFE” 8
III. “PYLADES AND ORESTES” 20
IV. “BUCKHOLME” 28
V. THE EARL OF NOXTON 42
VI. DUAL LIVES 57
VII. BERTHA’S ESCAPE 66
VIII. A SORROW AND A SOLACE 77
IX. NEWS OF THE FUGITIVES 83
X. “LA GRANDE PASSION” 91
XI. A CORSICAN CHANT 104
XII. CROMILLIAN, THE MORAL BANDIT 116
XIII. “TO SEE IS TO LOVE!” 124
XIV. A FLOWER WITH BLOOD-STAINED PETALS 141
XV. A DUEL IN THE DARK 149
XVI. ANCESTRAL PRIDE 168
XVII. A LIFE FOR A LIFE 173
XVIII. A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD 200
XIX. THE AVENGER OF BLOOD 205
XX. “WHO IS MASTER HERE?” 216
XXI. A BIRTHDAY PARTY 281
XXII. TREACHERY 242
XXIII. “HE IS THE MAN!” 251
XXIV. THE HALL OF MIRRORS 261
XXV. THE DUNGEON CHAMBER 278
XXVI. AT SALVANETRA 281
XXVII. TO THE RESCUE! 285
XXVIII. “WE WILL DIE TOGETHER!” 293
XXIX. A DOUBLE VENDETTA 305
XXX. THE GARDEN OF EDEN 311
XXXI. FATHER AND SON 322
XXXII. “MERRIE ENGLAND” 328
THE CORSICAN LOVERS.
CHAPTER I.
BROTHERLY LOVE.
“You have no right, Pascal, to command me to marry a man whom I do not
love.”
The speaker was a young girl not more than eighteen years of age. As she
spoke, the flashing of her eyes and her clenched hands betokened the
intensity of her feelings.
The person to whom the words were addressed was a man of about forty. He
was smooth-shaven, and the black, shaggy eyebrows which met above the
bridge of his nose, gave to his face a stern and almost forbidding
expression. He did not reply to his sister’s impassioned words for some
time, but sat, apparently unconcerned, tapping lightly on the library
table with the fingers of his right hand.
At last he spoke: “I do not command you, Vivienne; all I ask is that you
will comply with your father’s dying wish.”
“How do you know that it was his dying wish? He was dead when found,
stabbed to the heart, as you told me, by Manuel Della Coscia--that brave
Corsican who ran away to escape the vengeance he so well deserved.”
The man looked up approvingly. “My sister, that was spoken like a true
Batistelli. If you loved your father, as your words seem to indicate, I
do not see how you can disobey his slightest wish.”
The girl turned upon him, that bright flash again in her eyes. “Why are
you so anxious that I should marry? Why is it that you yourself do not
marry?”
The man’s answer came quickly: “I have sworn, and so has your brother
Julien, that we will not marry until our father’s death has been
avenged.”
The girl placed both her hands on the edge of the table, leaned forward,
and looked into her brother’s face, as she said: “And neither will I.”
She spoke with suppressed intensity.
“You knew our father,” she continued; “you loved him when he was alive
and you can love him now. You have something tangible to remember; I can
only love his memory. I was but a child a few days old when he fell
beneath the knife of the assassin. I do love his memory, and I know if
he were living he would not condemn me to a loveless marriage.”
Again that inscrutable look came upon the man’s face. He shrugged his
shoulders and the dark line of eyebrows lifted perceptibly.
“I do not know what he would do; I only know what he did.”
“And what did he do?” broke in Vivienne.
The man started. The question was asked with such vehemence that for an
instant his marked self-possession was overcome.
“What did he do?” he repeated, thus gaining time, for he wished to think
of the most forcible way in which to present the matter to his sister.
“I will tell you. I know that he talked the matter over with old Count
Mont d’Oro. The Count is dead, or there would be a living witness to the
compact. But a few days before our father’s death, in fact the very day
you were born, even while you were in your nurse’s arms, he said to me,
‘I am glad that it is a daughter. She shall be called Vivienne, and when
she grows to womanhood she shall be a countess, for I have talked the
matter over with Count Mont d’Oro, and we have both agreed that the
little Count Napier shall be the husband of my little Vivienne.’ Three
days later I looked upon his lifeless body. The words of the dead cannot
be changed.”
It was now the young girl’s turn to think before speaking. The position
that her brother had taken seemed, for the moment at least,
unanswerable; but woman’s wisdom, like her wit, is equal to any
emergency.
“Brother Pascal,” she began, and her voice was tremulous, “when I was
bereft of a father’s and a mother’s love, you took their place. It is to
you I have always looked for advice--both Julien and I, for you are so
much older and wiser than we are. You have taken our father’s place; his
words have become your words, but you are living and can change your
words and free me from this bondage, for I would rather die than become
the wife of Count Napier, or any other man I cannot love.”
Pascal Batistelli set his teeth tightly together, a dark look came into
his face. “Am I to understand, then, that you absolutely refuse to marry
Count Mont d’Oro?”
“Not only him, but any one else,” answered the girl. “I am content as I
am.”
She turned away from the table, walked to the window, and looked out
upon the grounds which stretched far and wide from the castle walls. The
bright sunlight fell on tree and bush and on the brightly tinted
flowers. All was beauty and peace without. How could nature be so happy,
and she so miserable? Suddenly she turned and approached her brother,
who had not changed his position.
“When did you wish this marriage to take place?” she asked, making a
vain attempt to smile.
“On your eighteenth birthday,” he said, calmly.
“Oh, I have some time, then, to wait,” and she gave a little laugh.
“You may tell Count Mont d’Oro that I will see him. I will tell him how
much I love him. Then----” She could say no more. With a convulsive sob
she turned and fled from the room.
“When a woman says she won’t, she often will,” soliloquised Pascal, as
he arose and went to the window from which Vivienne had looked. “My
father left fine estates. How could a sensible man make such a foolish
will?”
Pascal took a small silver key from his pocket, and turning to an old
escritoire, opened a drawer and took therefrom a paper. He then reseated
himself at the table. “I should not have known,” said he to himself,
“what was in my father’s will if I had not bribed the notary to break
the seals and make me a copy. It is well to know what the future has in
store for you--and for others. My father executed a document by which I
was made guardian of my brother Julien and my sister Vivienne, until
they became of age, I to supply all their wants as their father would
have done. By a strange coincidence, my brother Julien is exactly seven
years older than my sister. In a few months he will be twenty-five and
she eighteen. The will must then be opened and what I alone know--I do
not count the notary, for I have paid him his price--all will know.”
Then he read the document carefully:
“If my daughter Vivienne marries Count Mont d’Oro’s son Napier, on or
before her eighteenth birthday, as he will be wealthy in his own right,
and I wish the marriage to be one of love, my estates shall be divided
equally between my two sons, Pascal and Julien, if both are living; if
but one be living, then to him, and if both should die and my daughter
live, all shall go to her. If she does not marry Count Mont d’Oro’s son
Napier for lack of love of him, half of my estate shall become hers. As
Pascal will have had the entire income of my estate for eighteen years,
he will be worth much, and the other half of my estate shall go to
Julien, if living; if not, all shall go to Vivienne.”
“A very unfair will,” said Pascal, as he replaced the document in the
escritoire. “If the dead could come back, such injustice would probably
be remedied.”
There was a tap at the door, which opened almost immediately and
Adolphe, Pascal’s valet, entered.
“The Count Mont d’Oro.”
“Admit him,” said Pascal, and a moment later the young Count advanced
with outstretched hand, exclaiming even before their hands met:
“What news? What news? What does she say?”
“Oh, the impatience of you young lovers!” cried Pascal. “I think the
leaven of love must have been left out of my composition. I have never
yet met a woman who could put such fire into my blood as there seems to
be in yours, my dear Count.”
“No more about me. Let us speak of her. What does she say?”
“Do not be too impatient. Even if I could repeat her very words, I could
not say them just as she did. I can but translate them into a cold,
formal phrase. She will see you.”
“I thought she would,” cried the young Count, “and when I kneel and lay
my love at her feet, she will accept me and make me the happiest of
men.”
“Be not too confident,” said Pascal; “she is young and wilful. You know
the Batistellis are a determined race. I did not try to plead your
cause. I am not used to love-making, and I felt that I should injure
your prospects if I spoke in your behalf. But I warn you that you must
use your eloquence and not appear too confident at the first.”
The Count laughed. It was not an honest, sincere laugh. A good judge of
human nature would have detected in it a hollow sound--more of mockery
than of true passion.
“One can see by looking at you, Pascal, that you are not an Adonis. You
are not to blame if you have not the graces of Apollo. I have not
descended from the ancient gods of Greece, but I have had an experience
which even they might envy. I have run the gamut of Parisian society
from the ante-chamber of royalty to the gutter, and in Paris there are
beauties to be found even in the gutter.”
“I would not tell Vivienne that,” suggested Pascal.
“Of course not,” said the Count; “she is young and inexperienced and
would not understand.”
“She might not understand,” said Pascal, “but on the other hand she
might imagine more than the truth, and that would be fatal to your
prospects, for I warn you, Count, that she is a woman who will not marry
a man she does not love, and she will insist that he love her and her
only.”
Again the Count laughed. “Why, even the King of France cannot command so
much as that. I suppose I must bury the past. She is worth it. By the
way, my dear Pascal, I think you told me that in case she marries me
before her eighteenth birthday, the estates go with her.”
“My father made a most foolish will,” said Pascal, guardedly.
“That is what troubles me,” said the Count. “I feel like a robber; as
though I had placed a pistol at your head and said, ‘Pascal Batistelli,
give me your sister and your estates or you are a dead man.’” Then he
added, after a moment’s thought: “I do not think that I can do it, after
all. I think I shall go back to Paris.”
“Then you do not love my sister?” queried Pascal. He did not think the
Count meant what he said, but it suited his purpose to take the remark
seriously.
“When I am with her, yes,” said the Count; “then your sister Vivienne
is the divine She; but, as I told you, there are beautiful women in
Paris.”
Pascal felt the ground slipping from under his feet. “When you are
married, Count, you can go to Paris; you are not obliged to live here in
this dull place.”
“Oh, yes, but they will know that I am married.” Then, with a conceit
which did not seem particularly offensive on account of the manner in
which it was spoken, he added: “And, you know, I am quite a catch
myself.”
“Certainly,” said Pascal, “and when the estates of Mont d’Oro and
Batistelli are united, I have no doubt that many a fair eye in Paris
will be wet with tears.”
“Well spoken, my dear Pascal,” cried the Count, as he threw his arm
about the neck of his prospective brother-in-law.
Pascal did not appreciate the caress, but the urgency of the situation
prevented his refusing it. “But you will see her?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!” cried the Count. “My father wished this marriage to take
place; my mother does not think that I am good enough for your sister.
That is one reason why I am determined to marry her. To-morrow?”
“Yes, to-morrow,” said Pascal; “any hour in the morning. We breakfast at
eight; no earlier than that, of course.”
“Don’t worry,” said the Count, “I do not rise until nine. By half-past
ten she may expect her ardent suitor.” He flourished his hat through the
air, bowed low to Pascal before placing it on his head, and a moment
later was gone.
Pascal walked to the window and looked again upon the far-reaching acres
of the Batistelli estate. “She must marry him; then I shall have half.
That precious brother of mine will be killed in some drunken brawl or
die a sot, then all will be mine.”