As it often happens that, in affairs of importance, the minor events
which lead to the ultimate result seem to occur rapidly, and almost to
stumble over each other in their haste, it came to pass that on the
very evening after I had got Nino's letter I was sent for by the
contessina.
When the man came to call me I was sitting in my room, from force of
habit, though the long delay had made the possibility of the meeting
seem shadowy. I was hoping that Nino might arrive in time to go in my
place, for I knew that he would not be many hours behind his letter.
He would assuredly travel as fast as he could, and if he had
understood my directions he was not likely to go astray. But in spite
of my hopes the summons came too soon, and I was obliged to go myself.
Picture to yourselves how I looked and how I felt: a sober old
professor, as I am, stealing out in the night, all wrapped in a cloak
as dark and shabby as any conspirator's; armed with a good knife in
case of accidents; with beating heart, and doubting whether I could
use my weapon if needful; and guided to the place of tryst by the
confidential servant of a beautiful and unhappy maiden. I have often
laughed since then at the figure I must have cut, but I did not laugh
at the time. It was a very serious affair.
We skirted the base of the huge rock on which the castle is built, and
reached the small, low door without meeting anyone. It was a moonlit
night,--the Paschal moon was nearly at the full,--and the whiteness
made each separate iron rivet in the door stand out distinct, thrown
into relief by its own small shadow on the seamed oak. My guide
produced a ponderous key, which screamed hoarsely in the lock under
the pressure of his two hands, as he made it turn in the rusty wards.
The noise frightened me, but the man laughed, and said they could not
hear where they sat, far up in the vaulted chamber, telling long
stories over their wine. We entered, and I had to mount a little way
up the dark steps to give him room to close the door behind us, by
which we were left in total darkness. I confess I was very nervous and
frightened until he lighted a taper which he had brought and made
enough light to show the way. The stairs were winding and steep, but
perfectly dry, and when he had passed me I followed him, feeling that
at all events the door behind was closed, and there was someone
between me and any danger ahead.
The man paused in front of me, and when I had rounded the corner of
the winding steps I saw that a brighter light than ours shone from a
small doorway opening directly upon the stair. In another moment I was
in the presence of Hedwig von Lira. The man retired and left us.
She stood, dressed in black, against the rough stone; the strong light
of a gorgeous gilt lamp that was placed on the floor streamed upward
on her white face. Her eyes caught the brightness, and seemed to burn
like deep, dark gems, though they appeared so blue in the day. She
looked like a person tortured past endurance, so that the pain of
the soul has taken shape, and the agony of the heart has assumed
substance. Tears shed had hollowed the marble cheeks, and the stronger
suffering that cannot weep had chiselled out great shadows beneath her
brows. Her thin clasped hands seemed wringing each other into strange
shapes of woe; and though she stood erect as a slender pillar against
the black rock, it was rather from the courage of despair than because
she was straight and tall by her own nature.
I bent low before her, awed by the extremity of suffering I saw.
"Are you Signor Grandi?" she asked, in a low and trembling voice.
"Most humbly at your service, Signora Contessina," I answered. She put
out her hand to me, and then drew it back quickly, with a timid
nervous look as I moved to take it.
"I never saw you," she said, "but I feel as though you _must_ be a
friend--" She paused.
"Indeed, signorina, I am here for that reason," said I, trying to
speak stoutly, and so to inspire her with some courage. "Tell me how I
can best serve you; and though I am not young and strong like Nino
Cardegna, my boy, I am not so old but that I can do whatsoever you
command."
"Then in God's name, save me from this--" But again the sentence died
upon her lips, and she glanced anxiously at the door. I reflected that
if anyone came we should be caught like mice in a trap, and I made as
though I would look out upon the stairs. But she stopped me.
"I am foolishly frightened," she said. "That man is faithful, and
will keep watch." I thought it time to discover her wishes.
"Signorina," said I, "you ask me to save you. You do not say from
what. I can at least tell you that Nino Cardegna will be here in a day
or two--" At this sudden news she gave a little cry, and the blood
rushed to her cheeks, in strange contrast with their deathly
whiteness. She seemed on the point of speaking, but checked herself,
and her eyes, that had looked me through and through a moment before,
drooped modestly under my glance.
"Is it possible?" she said at last, in a changed voice. "Yes, if he
comes, I think the Signor Cardegna will help me."
"Madam," I said, very courteously, for I guessed her embarrassment,
"I can assure you that my boy is ready to give you his life in return
for the kindness he received at your hands in Rome." She looked up,
smiling through her tears, for the sudden happiness had moistened the
drooping lids.
"You are very kind, Signor Grandi. Signor Cardegna is, I believe, a
good friend of mine. You say he will be here?"
"I received a letter from him to-day, dated in Rome, in which he tells
me that he will start immediately. He may be here to-morrow morning,"
I answered. Hedwig had regained her composure, perhaps because she
was reassured by my manner of speaking about Nino. I, however, was
anxious to hear from her own lips some confirmation of my suspicions
concerning the baron. "I have no doubt," I continued presently, "that,
with your consent, my boy will be able to deliver you from this
prison--" I used the word at a venture. Had Hedwig suffered less, and
been less cruelly tormented, she would have rebuked me for the
expression. But I recalled her to her position, and her self-control
gave way at once.
"Oh, you are right to call it a prison!" she cried. "It is as much a
prison as this chamber hewed out of the rock, where so many a wretch
has languished hopelessly; a prison from which I am daily taken out
into the sweet sun, to breathe and be kept alive, and to taste how
joyful a thing liberty must be! And every day I am brought back, and
told that I may be free if I will consent. Consent! God of mercy!" she
moaned, in a sudden tempest of passionate despair. "Consent ever to
belong, body--and soul--to be touched, polluted, desecrated, by that
inhuman monster; sold to him, to a creature without pity, whose heart
is a toad, a venomous creeping thing--sold to him for this life, and
to the vengeance of God hereafter; bartered, traded, and told that I
am so vile and lost that the very price I am offered is an honour to
me, being so much more than my value." She came toward me as she
spoke, and the passionate, unshed tears that were in her seemed to
choke her, so that her voice was hoarse.
"And for what--for what?" she cried, wildly, seizing my arm and
looking fiercely into my eyes. "For what, I say? Because I gave him a
poor rose; because I let him see me once; because I loved his sweet
voice; because--because--I love him, and will love him, and do love
him, though I die!"
The girl was in a frenzy of passion and love and hate all together,
and did not count her words. The white heat of her tormented soul
blazed from her pale face and illuminated every feature, though she
was turned from the light, and she shook my arm in her grasp so that
it pained me. The marble was burnt in the fire, and must consume
itself to ashes. The white and calm statue was become a pillar of
flame in the life-and-death struggle for love. I strove to speak, but
could not, for fear and wonder tied my tongue. And indeed she gave me
short time to think.
"I tell you I love him, as he loves me," she continued, her voice
trembling upon the rising cadence, "with all my whole being. Tell him
so. Tell him he must save me, and that only he can: that for his sake
I am tortured, and scorned, and disgraced, and sold; my body thrown to
dogs, and worse than dogs; my soul given over to devils that tempt me
to kill and be free,--by my own father, for his sake. Tell him that
these hands he kissed are wasted with wringing small pains from each
other, but the greater pain drives them to do worse. Tell him, good
sir,--you are kind and love him, but not as I do,--tell him that this
golden hair of mine has streaks of white in these terrible two months;
that these eyes he loved are worn with weeping. Tell him--"
But her voice failed her, and she staggered against the wall, hiding
her face in her hands. A trembling breath, a struggle, a great wild
sob: the long-sealed tears were free, and flowed fast over her hands.
"Oh, no, no," she moaned, "you must not tell him that." Then choking
down her agony she turned to me: "You will not--you cannot tell him of
this? I am weak, ill, but I will bear everything for--for him." The
great effort exhausted her, and I think that if I had not caught her
she would have fallen, and she would have hurt herself very much on
the stone floor. But she is young, and I am not very strong, and could
not have held her up. So I knelt, letting her weight come on my
shoulder.
The fair head rested pathetically against my old coat, and I tried to
wipe away her tears with her long golden hair; for I had not any
handkerchief. But very soon I could not see to do it. I was crying
myself, for the pity of it all, and my tears trickled down and fell on
her thin hands. And so I kneeled, and she half lay and half sat upon
the floor, with her head resting on my shoulder; I was glad then to be
old, for I felt that I had a right to comfort her.
Presently she looked up into my face, and saw that I was weeping. She
did not speak, but found her little lace handkerchief, and pressed it
to my eyes,--first to one, and then to the other; and the action
brought a faint maidenly flush to her cheeks through all her own
sorrow. A daughter could not have done it more kindly.
"My child," I said at last, "be sure that your secret is safe in me.
But there is one coming with whom it will be safer."
"You are so good," she said, and her head sank once more, and nestled
against my breast, so that I could just see the bright tresses through
my gray beard. But in a moment she looked up again, and made as though
she would rise; and then I helped her, and we both stood on our feet.
Poor, beautiful, tormented Hedwig! I can remember it, and call up the
whole picture to my mind. She still leaned on my arm, and looked up to
me, her loosened hair all falling back upon her shoulders; and the
wonderful lines of her delicate face seemed made ethereal and angelic
by her sufferings.
"My dear," I said at last, smoothing her golden hair with my hand, as
I thought her mother would do, if she had a mother,--"my dear, your
interview with my boy may be a short one, and you may not have an
opportunity to meet at all for days. If it does not pain you too
much, will you tell me just what your troubles are here? I can then
tell him, so that you can save time when you are together." She gazed
into my eyes for some seconds, as though to prove me, whether I were a
true man.
"I think you are right," she answered, taking courage. "I will tell
you in two words. My father treats me as though I had committed some
unpardonable crime, which I do not at all understand. He says my
reputation is ruined. Surely that is not true?" She asked the question
so innocently and simply that I smiled.
"No, my dear, it is not true," I replied.
"I am sure I cannot understand it," she continued; "but he says so,
and insists that my only course is to accept what he calls the
advantageous offer which has suddenly presented itself. He insists
very roughly." She shuddered slightly. "He gives me no peace. It
appears that this creature wrote to ask my father for my hand when we
left Rome two months ago. The letter was forwarded, and my father
began at once to tell me that I must make up my mind to the marriage.
At first I used to be very angry; but seeing we were alone, I finally
determined to seem indifferent, and not to answer him when he talked
about it. Then he thought my spirit was broken, and he sent for Baron
Benoni, who arrived a fortnight ago. Do you know him, Signor Grandi?
You came to see him, so I suppose you do?" The same look of hatred and
loathing came to her face that I had noticed when Benoni and I met her
in the hall.
"Yes, I know him. He is a traitor, a villain," I said earnestly.
"Yes, and more than that. But he is a great banker in Russia--"
"A banker?" I asked, in some astonishment.
"Did you not know it? Yes; he is very rich, and has a great firm, if
that is the name for it. But he wanders incessantly, and his partners
take care of his affairs. My father says that I shall marry him or end
my days here."
"Unless you end his for him!" I cried, indignantly.
"Hush!" said she, and trembled violently. "He is my father, you know,"
she added, with sudden earnestness.
"But you cannot consent--" I began.
"Consent!" she interrupted with a bitter laugh. "I will die rather
than consent."
"I mean, you cannot consent to be shut up in this valley for ever."
"If need be, I will," she said, in a low voice.
"There is no need," I whispered.
"You do not know my father. He is a man of iron," she answered,
sorrowfully.
"You do not know my boy. He is a man of his word," I replied.
We were both silent, for we both knew very well what our words meant.
From such a situation there could be but one escape.
"I think you ought to go now," she said, at last. "If I were missed it
would all be over. But I am sorry to let you go, you are so kind. How
can you let me know--" She stopped, with a blush, and stooped to raise
the lamp from the floor.
"Can you not meet here to-morrow night, when they are asleep?" I
suggested, knowing what her question would have been.
"I will send the same man to you to-morrow evening, and let you know
what is possible," she said. "And now I will show you the way out of
my house," she added, with the first faint shadow of a smile. With the
slight gilt lamp in her hand she went out of the little rock chamber,
listened a moment, and began to descend the steps.
"But the key?" I asked, following her light footsteps with my heavier
tread.
"It is in the door," she answered, and went on.
When we reached the bottom we found it as she had said. The servant
had left the key on the inside, and with some difficulty I turned the
bolts. We stood for one moment in the narrow space, where the lowest
step was set close against the door. Her eyes flashed strangely in the
lamplight.
"How easy it would be!" I said, understanding her glance. She nodded,
and pushed me gently out into the street; and I closed the door, and
leaned against it as she locked it.
"Good-night," she said from the other side, and I put my mouth to the
key-hole. "Good-night. Courage!" I answered. I could hear her lightly
mounting the stone steps. It seemed wonderful to me that she should
not be afraid to go back alone. But love makes people brave.
The moon had risen higher during the time I had been within, and I
strolled round the base of the rock, lighting a cigar as I went. The
terrible adventure I had dreaded was now over, and I felt myself
again. In truth, it was a curious thing to happen to a man of my years
and my habits; but the things I had heard had so much absorbed my
attention that, while the interview lasted, I had forgotten the
strange manner of the meeting. I was horrified at the extent of the
girl's misery, more felt than understood from her brief description
and passionate outbreaks. There is no mistaking the strength of a
suffering that wastes and consumes the mortal part of us as wax melts
at the fire.
And Benoni--the villain! He had written to ask Hedwig in marriage
before he came to see me in Rome. There was something fiendish in his
almost inviting me to see his triumph, and I cursed him as I kicked
the loose stones in the road with my heavy shoes. So he was a banker,
as well as a musician and a wanderer. Who would have thought it?
"One thing is clear," I said to myself, as I went to bed: "unless
something is done immediately, that poor girl will consume herself and
die." And all that night her poor thin face and staring eyes were in
my dreams; so that I woke up several times, thinking I was trying to
comfort her, and could not. But toward dawn I felt sure that Nino was
coming, and that all would be well.
I was chatting with my old landlady the next morning, and smoking to
pass the time, when there was suddenly a commotion in the street. That
is to say, someone was arriving, and all the little children turned
out in a body to run after the stranger, while the old women came to
their doors with their knitting, and squinted under the bright
sunlight to see what was the matter.
It was Nino, of course--my own boy, riding on a stout mule, with a
countryman by his side upon another. He was dressed in plain gray
clothes, and wore high boots. His great felt hat drooped half across
his face, and hid his eyes from me; but there was no mistaking the
stern square jaw and the close even lips. I ran toward him and called
him by name. In a moment he was off his beast, and we embraced
tenderly.
"Have you seen her?" were the first words he spoke. I nodded, and
hurried him into the house where I lived, fearful lest some mischance
should bring the party from the castle riding by. He sent his man with
the mules to the inn, and when we were at last alone together he threw
himself into a chair, and took off his hat.
Nino too was changed in the two months that had passed. He had
travelled far, had sung lustily, and had been applauded to the skies;
and he had seen the great world. But there was more than all that in
his face. There were lines of care and of thought that well became his
masculine features. There was a something in his look that told of a
set purpose, and there was a light in his dark eyes that spoke a world
of warning to anyone who might dare to thwart him. But he seemed
thinner, and his cheeks were as white as the paper I write on.
Some men are born masters, and never once relax the authority they
exercise on those around them. Nino has always commanded me, as he
seems to command everybody else, in the fewest words possible. But he
is so true and honest and brave that all who know him love him; and
that is more than can be said for most artists. As he sat in his
chair, hesitating what question to ask first, or waiting for me to
speak, I thought that if Hedwig von Lira had searched the whole world
for a man able to deliver her from her cruel father and from her hated
lover she could have chosen no better champion than Nino Cardegna, the
singer. Of course you all say that I am infatuated with the boy, and
that I helped him to do a reckless thing, simply because I was blinded
by my fondness. But I maintain, and shall ever hold, that Nino did
right in this matter, and I am telling my story merely in order that
honest men may judge.
He sat by the window, and the sun poured through the panes upon his
curling hair, his travelling dress, and his dusty boots. The woman of
the house brought in some wine and water; but he only sipped the
water, and would not touch the wine.
"You are a dear, kind father to me," he said, putting out his hand
from where he sat, "and before we talk I must tell you how much I
thank you." Simple words, as they look on paper; but another man could
not have said so much in an hour as his voice and look told me.