MARGHARITA'S DIARY--A CORRESPONDENCE
_Letter from Count Leonardo di Marioni to Miss M. Briscoe, care of the
Earl of St. Maurice, Mallory Grange, Lincolnshire._
"HOTEL DE PARIS, TURIN.
"MY BELOVED NIECE: Alas! I have but another disappointment to recount. I
arrived here last night, and early this morning I visited the address
which I obtained at Florence with so much difficulty. The house was shut
up. From inquiries made with caution among the neighbors I learned that
Andrea Paschuli had left a few months before for Rome. Thither I go in
search of him.
"The delay is irksome, but it is necessary. Although my desire for the
day of my vengeance to come is as strong as ever, I would not have the
shadow of a suspicion rest upon you. Truly, yours will be no crime, but
the world and the courts of justice would have it otherwise. You will,
in verity, be but the instrument. Upon my head be the guilt, as mine
will be the exceeding joy, when the thing for which I crave is
accomplished. Bless you, my child, that you have elected to aid me in
carrying out this most just requital! Bless you, my child, that you have
chosen to bring peace into the heart of one who has known great
suffering!
"Your last letter was short; yet I do not wonder at it. What is there
you can find to say to me, while our great purpose remains thus in
abeyance? My health continues good, I am thankful to say, yet, were it
otherwise, I know that my strength would linger with me till my oath is
accomplished. Till that day shall come death itself has no power over
me. Even though its shadow lay across my path I could still defy it.
Think not that I am blaspheming, Margharita, or that I believe in no
God. I believe in a God of justice, and he will award me my right. Oh,
that the time may be short, for I am growing weary. Life is very
burdensome, save only for its end.
"Sometimes, my beloved Margharita, you have sought to lighten the deep
gloom through which I struggle, by picturing the happy days we may yet
spend together in some far-distant country, where the shadows of this
great selfish world barely reach, and its mighty roar and tumult sound
but as a faint, low murmur. I have listened, but I have answered not;
for in my heart I know that it will never be. Those days will never
come. I have shrunk from throwing a chill upon your warm, generous
heart; but of late I have wondered whether I do well in thus silently
deceiving you. For, Margharita, there is no such time of peaceful
happiness in store for me. I am dying! Nay, do not start! Do not pity
me! Do not fear! I know it so well; and I feel no pang, no sorrow. The
limit of my days is fixed--not in actual days or weeks, but by events. I
shall live to see my desire accomplished, and then I shall die. The
light may flicker, but, till then, it will not go out. You will ask me:
Who am I that I dare to fix a limit to an existence which God alone
controls? I cannot tell you, Margharita, why I know, or how, yet it is
surely so. The day which sees me free of my vow will also be the day of
my death.
"Trouble not, my child, at this thought, nor wonder why I can write of
the end of my days so calmly. Ask yourself rather what further life
could mean for me. There is no joy which I desire; my worn-out frame
could find no pleasure in dragging out a tasteless and profitless
existence. I look for death as one looks for his couch who has toiled
and labored through the heat of the day. I shall find there rest and
peace. I have no other desire.
"For yourself, Margharita, have no fear. I have made your fortune my
care, and God grant that it may be a happy one. Honest men have made
good profit out of my lands during my imprisonment. I have wealth to
leave, and it is yours. The Castle of the Marionis will be yours, and
well I know you will raise once more and uphold the mighty, though
fallen, traditions of our race. I leave all fearlessly in your hands, at
your entire disposal. Only one thing I beg of you, and that without fear
of refusal. Marry not an Englishman. Marry one of the nobility of our
own island, if you can find one worthy of you; if not, there are nobles
of Italy with whom your alliance would be an honor, and also a profit.
You will be rich as you are beautiful; and the first lady in Italy, our
distant kinswoman, Angela di Carlotti, will be your guardian and your
friend. May you be very, very happy, dearest; and all that comes to you
you will deserve, for you have lightened the heart of a weary old man,
whose blessing is yours, now and for ever.
"LEONARDO DI MARIONI."
* * * * *
_Letter from Margharita Briscoe to the Count Leonardo di Marioni, care
of the Princess di Carlotti, Palazzo Carlotti, Rome._
"MY DEAR, DEAR UNCLE: I am inclined to scold you for your letter, for it
made me very sad. Why should you be so sure of dying just as the
vengeance which is your due becomes yours? You are not very old, and I
can nurse you even as I did before. Think how lonely I should be without
you. No, you must not think of leaving me. I forbid it! It is morbid.
Banish that fancy for my sake, and try and think of a quiet happy life
together, away in some southern city, where the sea and the sky are
blue, and the sun is warm, and the breezes are soft and laden with the
perfume of sweet flowers. We would never live in this country, would we?
I do not like it. It is cold and damp, and it chills me, chills even my
heart. Oh! I know just the life we could live together, and be very,
very happy. Write to me no more of death.
"I am quite settled down here, waiting. My duties are light, and I do
not find them irksome. Every day I realize that I did well in coming
here as a governess, and not as one seeking a home. They think that it
is because of my pride that I have willed it so. They do not know.
"Lady St Maurice tries to be kind to me in her way; but when the honeyed
words are upon her lips, I think of you and my heart is steel. She must
have been a very beautiful woman--nay, she is beautiful now! You asked
me in your first letter to watch well and to tell you whether they were
happy together. You asked me, and I tell you the truth.
"Yes! I think that of all the women whom I have ever seen, her life
seems to have flown along the most calmly and peacefully. I have never
seen a cloud upon her brow; I hate her for it. She has no right to be
happy; she who by such treachery condemned you to a living death. Once
my anger rose up so fiercely that I nearly struck her, and I had to
hurry from the room lest I should betray myself before the time. Truly
she deserves punishment, and my hand shall not shrink from inflicting
it.
"Yet, after all, is death the most complete form of punishment.
Sometimes I doubt it. I would mar the beauty of her face for ever, and
laugh. I would strike her blind gladly; I would make her a cripple for
life, without remorse, without hesitation. To see her suffer would
please me. I should have no pity!
"But death, uncle! If anything of our religion be true, would death be
so terrible a thing? Against my will I see that her life is good. She
has made her home what it should be, and her husband happy. She is a
devoted Christian, and, wet or fine, every Sunday morning before
breakfast, she goes to the little church in the village and kneels
before the altar. She visits the sick and the poor, and they love her.
For me, religion has become something of a dream. I was brought up a
Roman Catholic. What I am now I do not know! When I vowed my life to its
present purpose I filled it with new thoughts; I put my religion away
from me. I could not kneel with hate in my heart; I could not confess,
with the desire to kill in my bosom.
"Yet let that pass. Supposing there be a heaven, if we kill her for her
treachery to you will not that sin be wiped out? May she not gain
heaven? And if so, what of our vengeance? Death is swift! What will she
suffer? It will be those who are left behind who will feel the pain; for
her, there will be a happiness beyond even the happiness of earth. She
will be shriven of her sin by our vengeance.
"Think of this, my dear uncle! Do not imagine that I am growing
faint-hearted; do not imagine that I am drawing back from the task which
I now claim as my right. Death, or some other sort of punishment, shall
surely fall upon her; she shall not escape! Only think what is best.
"Write to me all that is in your heart. Fear not to speak out! I would
know all. Farewell! Your loving
"MARGHARITA."
* * * * *
_Letter from the Count Leonardo di Marioni, the Palazzo Carlotti, Rome,
to Miss Margharita Briscoe, Mallory Grange, Lincolnshire._
"BELOVED MARGHARITA: I will confess that your letter troubles me. If
there be heaven for the woman who wrecked my life, there is no heaven
for me, no religion, no God. You say that she is a good woman. She is
then a good woman through fear. She seeks to atone, but she can never
atone. She won a boy's passionate love; she wore his heart upon her
sleeve; she cast it away at the moment of her pleasure. She broke the
vows of an order, which should have been as sacred to her as the face of
God to the angels; and she sent a Marioni to rot through a useless life
in a miserable prison. The boy whose heart she broke, and the man whose
life she severed, lives only to nurse his unchanging and unchangeable
hate for her. Away with all other thoughts, my vengeance knows but one
end, and that is death! Not sudden death, mind! but death--slow,
lingering, and painful. I would see the struggle against some mysterious
sickness, with my own eyes; I would stand by the bedside and mock, I
would watch the cheeks grow thin and pale, and the eyes grow dim. She
should know me in those last moments. She should see me, the wasted
shadow of a man, myself on the threshold of the grave, standing by her
bedside, cold and unpitying, and holding out toward her a white
hyacinth.
"That is how I would have it, though thus it may not be. Yet speak to me
not of any other vengeance save death. Let none other dwell for a moment
in your thoughts, I solemnly charge you, Margharita.
"As to my search, it has not yet, alas, been successful. Think not that
I have lost heart, or that I am discouraged. Never fear but that I shall
find the man whom I seek--if not, there are others. I give myself one
month longer; at the end of that time, if Paschuli be not found, another
must serve my purpose.
"The Princess is much interested in you, and sends her love. She is
impatient to take you under her care. I have told her that it will not
be long--nor will it.
"Farewell, my child. Soon I shall send you the good news.--Yours,
"LEONARDO DI MARIONI."