“The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?”
“It seems probable, your excellency.”
“There will be fighting--we are on the eve of war, I mean?”
“We are in God’s hands, your excellency.”
“In God’s hands!” she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood
silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. “I was forgetting,” she
exclaimed. “This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other
day--what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair
at Peschiera--“
“Ah, Vannina,” I said; “but she is dead, your excellency.”
“Dead!” She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it
up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. “That is for masses,
then,” she said; and with that she moved away toward the house.
I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step
behind me.
“Don Egidio!” she called; and I turned back.
“You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?”
“That is the Count’s wish.”
She wavered a moment. “I am not well enough to walk up to the village this
afternoon,” she said at length. “Will you come back later and hear my
confession here?”
“Willingly, your excellency.”
“Come at sunset then.” She looked at me gravely. “It is a long time since I
have been to confession,” she added.
“My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched.”
She made no answer and I went my way.
I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words
with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the
uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend’s
company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his
preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not
disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the
Count’s apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at
a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face
on me.
“Roberto!” I cried, as if we had been boys together.
He signed to me to be seated.
“Egidio,” he said suddenly, “my wife has sent for you to confess her?”
“The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to
receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I
promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession.”
Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length
he raised his head and began to speak.
“You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?” he asked.
“Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She
has seemed nervous, out of spirits--I have fancied that she might be
anxious about your excellency.”
He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. “Call me
Roberto,” he said.
There was another pause before he went on. “Since I saw you this morning,”
he said slowly, “something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for
Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of
my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have
reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I
know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty
to leave my affairs in Andrea’s hands, and to entrust my wife to his care.
Don’t look startled,” he added with a faint smile. “No reasonable man goes
on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the
turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.--But
it was not to hear this that I sent for you.” He pushed his chair aside and
walked up and down the room with his short limping step. “My God!” he broke
out wildly, “how can I say it?--When Andrea had heard me, I saw him
exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet
voice of hers, ‘Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.’
“‘Your duty?’ I asked. ‘What is your duty?’
“Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her
look was like a blade in his hand.
“‘Your wife has a lover,’ he said.
“She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than
I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he
used to bully you.
“‘Let me go,’ I said to his wife. ‘He must live to unsay it.’
“Andrea began to whimper. ‘Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart’s
blood to unsay it!’
“‘The secret has been killing us,’ she chimed in.
“‘The secret? Whose secret? How dare you--?’
“Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. ‘Strike me--kill me--it is
I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him--’
“‘Him?’
“‘Franz Welkenstern--my cousin,’ she wailed.
“I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the
name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.--Not
hear it!” he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in
his hands. “Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?”
He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a
great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper.
After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words
were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure
he repeated each detail of his brother’s charges: the meetings in the
Countess Gemma’s drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two
young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta
Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their
names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the
reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had
sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into
another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the
reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be
desertion.
With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each
incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from
his chair--“And now to leave her with this lie unburied!”
His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. “You must not
leave her!” I exclaimed.
He shook his head. “I am pledged.”
“This is your first duty.”
“It would be any other man’s; not an Italian’s.”