Laura Arden's plans for the summer were not by any means settled, but
she was anxious to leave Rome soon, both because travelling in the heat
would be bad for little Herbert, and because she wished to quit the
rather expensive apartment in which she had continued to live after her
husband's death. A far smaller and less pretentious dwelling would be
amply sufficient for her next winter, and in the meantime she intended
to go to some quiet town either in Switzerland or by the seaside, and to
keep as much alone as possible. Her mother might be willing to spend a
month or two with her, and Laura would be very glad of her company, but
there was no one else whose society she desired. She could, of course,
go to England and stay at her brother-in-law's house in solemn and
solitary state, but she feared the long journey for her child, and she
cared little for the sort of existence she must lead in the magnificent
country-seat, in the absence of the Lulworths themselves. It would be
pleasant to lead a very simple and quiet life somewhere out of the
world, and as far as possible from the scene of all her sufferings. If
Adele and Francesco had not appeared while Ghisleri was making his first
visit, she would probably have asked his advice. He had been almost
everywhere, and being himself fond of solitude, would in all likelihood
have told her of some beautiful and secluded spot where she could live
in the way she desired. But in the presence of her step-sister she had
not cared to speak on the subject.
After they had left her she thought a long time of Ghisleri and his
story, and, for the first time in her life, she wished she might see him
again before long. He had shown her a side of himself which she had
neither seen nor guessed at before, and she began to understand, dimly
at first and then more clearly, the strong liking her husband had always
shown for him. He was capable of deep and earnest beliefs and of high
and generous impulses, in spite of his contempt for himself and of the
irregular life he led. His present existence, so far as she knew
anything of it, she condemned as unworthy. She was not, however, a woman
so easily shocked at the spectacle of evil in the lives of others as
might have been expected. There was a great deal of sound good sense in
the composition of her character, and she had seen enough of the world
to have learnt that perfection is a word used to define what is a little
better than the average. What she had disliked in Ghisleri from her
first acquaintance with him was not connected with his reputation, of
which, at that time, she had known very little. Besides, though people
called him fast and wild and more or less heartless, he was liked, on
the whole, as much as any unmarried man in society. He was known to be
honourable, courageous, and very discreet, and the latter quality almost
invariably brings its reward in the end. That he should have been
entangled in more than one love affair was only what was to be expected
of such a man, at two or three and thirty years of age, and no one
really considered him any the worse on that account, while the great
majority of women thought him vastly more interesting for that very
reason. Laura was not, perhaps, so entirely different from the rest of
her sex as Ghisleri was fond of believing. Her education had not been
that of young Roman girls, it is true, and the singular circumstances of
her short married life had not developed her character in the same
direction as theirs generally was by matrimony. But in real womanliness
she was as much a woman as any of them, liable to the same influences
and to the same class of enthusiasms. Because she had loved and married
Herbert Arden, it did not follow that she could not and did not admire
all that was brave and generous and strong, independently of moral
weakness and faults.
Arden himself, indeed, though he had excited her pity by his physical
defects, had commanded her respect by the manly courage he showed under
all his sufferings. She had been able to forget his deformity in the
superior gifts of intelligence and heart which had unquestionably been
his, and, after all, she had loved him most because she had felt that
but for an accident he would have been pre-eminently a manly man.
Cripple as he was, she had always known that she could rely on him, and
her instinct had always told her that he could protect her.
But she had never trusted Ghisleri. He had the misfortune to show his
worst side to most people, and he had shown it to her. She had seen more
than once that he was ready to undertake and carry out almost anything
for his friend's sake, and she had been honestly grateful to him for all
he had done. But she had not been able, until now, to shake off that
feeling of distrust and timid dislike she had always felt in his
presence. She had, indeed, succeeded tolerably well in hiding it from
him, but it had always made her cold in conversation and somewhat formal
in manner, and he, being outwardly a rather formal and cold man had, so
to say, put himself in harmony with her key. For the first time in their
acquaintance, and under pressure of what he considered necessity, he had
suddenly unbent, and had told her the principal story of his life with a
frankness and simplicity that had charmed her. From that hour she judged
him differently. After that first visit, he went often to see her, and
on each occasion he felt drawn more closely to her than before.
"You are very much changed," he said to her one day. "Do you mind my
saying it?"
"Not in the least," Laura answered, with a smile. "But in what way am I
different?"
"In one great thing, I think. You used to be very imposingly calm with
me. You never seemed quite willing to speak freely about anything. Now,
it is almost always you who make me talk by making me feel that you will
talk yourself. That is not very clearly put, is it? I do not know
whether you ever disliked me--if you did, you never showed it. But I
really begin to think that you almost like me. Is there any truth in
that?"
"Yes--a great deal." She smiled again. "More truth than you guess--for I
do not mind saying it since it is all over. I did not like you, and I
used to try and hide it. But I like you now, and I am quite willing that
you should know it."
"That is good of you--good as everything you do is. But I would really
like to know why you have changed your mind. May I?"
"Because I have found out that you are not what I took you for."
"Most discoveries of that kind are disappointments," observed Ghisleri,
with a dry laugh.
"That is just the sort of remark I used to dislike you for," said Laura.
"The world is not all bad, and you know it. Yet out of ten observations
you make, nine, at least, would lead one to believe that you think it
is."
"Excepting yourself, we are all as bad as we can be. What is the use of
denying it?"
"We are not all bad, and I do not choose to be made an exception of. I
am just like other people, or I should be if I were placed as they are.
I not only am sure that you are not a bad man, but I am quite convinced
that in some ways you are a very good one."
"What an odd mistake!"
"Why do you persistently try to make yourself out worse than you are,
and to show your worst side to the world?"
"I suppose that is the side most apparent to myself," answered Ghisleri.
"I cannot help seeing it."
"Because you are not Launcelot, you take yourself for Cæsar Borgia--"
"That would be flattering myself too much. Borgia was by far the more
intelligent of the two. Say Thersites."
"I know nothing about Thersites."
"Then say Judas. There seems to be very little difference of opinion as
to that personage's moral obliquity," Ghisleri laughed.
"Very well," said Laura, gravely. "I suppose you have no doubt, then,
that Judas would have acted as you did in your affair with Don
Gianforte. He would, of course, have submitted to insult rather than
break a promise, and would have allowed--"
"Will you please stop, Lady Herbert?" Ghisleri fixed his blue eyes on
her.
"No, I will not," answered Laura, with decision. "What I like about you
is precisely what you try the most to hide, and I mean to see it and to
make you see it, if possible. You would be much happier if you could. I
suppose that if the majority of people could hear us talking now, they
would think our conversation utterly absurd. They would say that you
were posing, in order to make yourself interesting, and that I was
enough attracted by you to be deceived by the comedy. Is not that the
way the world would look at it?"
"Probably," assented Ghisleri. "Perhaps I am really posing. I do not
pretend to know."
"I am willing to believe that you are not, if you will let me, and I
would much rather. In the first place, you are, at all events, not any
worse than most men one knows. That is evident enough from your actions.
Secondly,--you see I am arguing the case like a lawyer,--if you had not
a high ideal of what you wish to be, you would not have such a poor
opinion of what you are. Is that clear?"
"If there were no right, there could not possibly be any wrong. But
black would be black, even if you could only compare it with blue,
green, and yellow, instead of with white."
"I am not talking of chromolithographs," said Laura. "What I say is
simple enough. If you did not wish to be good, and know what good means,
and if you had not a certain amount of goodness in you, you would not
think yourself so bad. And you are unhappy, as you have told me before
now, because you think all your motives are insincere, or vain, or
defective in some way. I suppose you wish to be happy, and if you do,
you must learn to find some satisfaction in having done your best. I
have said precisely what I mean, and you must not pretend to
misunderstand me."
"Think yourself good, and you will be happy," observed Ghisleri. "That
is the modern form of the proverb."
"Of course it is, and the better reason you really have for thinking
yourself good, the more real and lasting your happiness will be."
Ghisleri laughed to himself, and at himself, as he went away, for being
so much impressed as he was by what Laura said. But he could not deny
that the impression had been made and remained for some time after he
had left her. There was a healthy common-sense about her mind which was
beginning to act upon the tortuous and often morbid complications of his
own. She seemed to know the straight paths and the short cuts to simple
goodness, and never to have guessed at the labyrinthine ways by which he
seemed to himself to be always trying to escape from the bugbear sent to
pursue him by the demon of self-mistrust. He laughed at himself, for he
realised how utterly impossible it would always be for him to think as
she did, or to look upon the world as she saw it. There had been a time
when he had thought more plainly, when a woman had exerted a strong
influence over him, and when a few good things and a few bad ones had
made up the sum of his life. But she was dead, and he had changed. Worse
than that, he had fallen. As he sat in his room and glanced from time to
time at the only likeness he had of Bianca Corleone, he thought of
Beatrice's reproach to Dante in the thirty-first canto of the
"Purgatory":
"And yet, because thou'rt shamed of me in all
Thy sin, and that in later days to come
Thou mayst be brave, hearing the Siren's voice
Sow deep the seed of tears and hear me speak.
So shalt thou know how thou should'st have been moved
By my dead body in ways opposite.
Nor art nor nature had the power to tempt thee
With such delight as that fair body could
In which I lived--which now is scattered earth--
And if the highest joy was lost to thee
By my young death, what mortal living thing
Should have had strength to drag thee down with it?"
As he repeated the last words he started for they reminded him with
painful force of Gianforte Campodonico's insulting speech, and he
detested himself for even allowing the thought to cross his mind--for
allowing himself to repeat Beatrice's words up to that point. It was he
who had dragged down Maddalena dell' Armi to his level, not she who had
made him sink to hers. And yet Campodonico had said almost the same
thing as Beatrice, and certainly without knowing it. In his heart he
knew that Bianca might have reproached him so, but then, deeper still,
he knew that the reproach, from her lips, would have fallen on himself
alone, and would never have been meant for Maddalena.
Ghisleri fell to thinking over his own life and the lives of others, in
one of those black moods which sometimes seized him and in which he
believed in no one's motives, from his own upward. In the course of his
lonely and bitter meditations, he came across an idea which at first
seemed wild and improbable enough, but which, little by little, took
shape as he concentrated his attention upon it, and at last chased every
other memory away. He was not naturally an over-suspicious man, but when
his suspicions were once roused he was apt to go far in pursuit of the
truth, if the matter interested him. He rose and got a book from the
shelves which lined one side of the wall, and began to turn over the
pages rapidly, until he stopped at the place he was looking for. He read
three or four pages very carefully twice over and returned the volume to
its place. Then he sat down to think, and did not move for another
quarter of an hour. At the end of that time he called his servant, a
quiet, hard-working fellow from the Abbruzzi, who rejoiced in the name
of Bonifazio.
"Do you happen to know," he asked, "if there was much scarlet fever in
the city last winter? I have always wondered how poor Lord Herbert
caught it."
Bonifazio had known Lord Herbert for years, just as Donald had known
Ghisleri, for the two friends had often made short journeys together,
taking their servants with them. The Italian thought a long time before
he gave an answer.
"No, Signore. I do not remember hearing that there were many cases. But
then, I am not in the way of knowing. It may have been."
"You are a very discreet man, Bonifazio," said Ghisleri. "Lord Herbert
fell ill on the day after he had dined in Casa Savelli. Do you think you
could find out for me whether any one of the servants had the scarlet
fever at that time?"
"Perhaps, signore. I will try. I know Giuseppe, the butler, who is a
very good person, but who is not fond of talking. When there is such an
illness they either send the servants to the hospital, in the Roman
houses, or else they put them in an attic and try not to let any one
know. For the rest, I will do what I can. You say well, Signore, for it
is possible that the blessed soul of the Milord caught the fever at the
dinner in Casa Savelli."
"That is what I think," said Ghisleri. And he thought a good deal more
also, which he did not communicate to his man.
Bonifazio, as his master said, was discreet. He was also very patient
and very uncommunicative, as the men of the Abbruzzi often are. They
make the best servants when they can be got, for, in addition to the
good qualities most of them possess in a greater or less degree, they
are almost always physically very strong men, though rarely above middle
height, and often extremely pale. Ghisleri knew that so soon as
Bonifazio had anything to tell, he would tell it without further
question or reminder.
Several days passed, during which Ghisleri, who gained strength rapidly,
began to resume his former mode of life, went to the club, saw his
friends, and made a few visits. He went more than once to Maddalena's
house and stayed some time with her when he found her alone. Little by
little he fancied that her look was changing and growing more
indifferent. He was glad of it. He wished that he might be to her
exactly what she was to him. That, indeed, could never be, but he wished
it were possible. He knew that when she ceased to love him altogether,
she could never feel friendly devotion, gratitude, or respect for him,
and he felt all three for her in a far greater degree than she could
imagine. On the whole, during that time their relations were peaceable,
and altogether undisturbed by the frequent differences that had so often
nearly estranged them from one another in earlier days. There was, of
course, an air of constraint about their meetings, more evident in
Maddalena's manner than in Ghisleri's, and the latter hardly hoped that
this could ever quite wear off and leave at last a sincere and true
friendship behind it. That was, indeed, the best that could be hoped for
either of them, and he had no right to expect the best, nor anything
approaching to it.
One evening as he was dressing for dinner, Bonifazio gave him the news
he desired. It had not been easy to extract any communication on the
subject from old Giuseppe, the Savelli's butler, but such as he had at
last given was clear, concise, and to the point. There had been a case
of scarlet fever in the house. Donna Adele's maid had taken it, and was
just convalescent at the time when the Ardens dined with Adele and her
husband. The woman's name was Lucia, and on falling ill she had been at
once removed to a distant room in the upper part of the palace. The case
had been rather a severe one, Giuseppe believed, and it was only within
the last few weeks that Lucia seemed to have regained her strength. She
was at present at Gerano with her mistress, but had written to the wife
of the Savelli's porter saying that she had been dismissed, and was to
leave at the end of the month, and asking for assistance in finding a
new place. Ghisleri was satisfied for the present. It was quite clear
that Arden must have caught the fever that killed him so suddenly in
Casa Savelli. Whether Donna Adele had in any way communicated the
contagion was another matter, and not easily decided. Her inexplicable
nervousness, beginning about the time that Arden died, might be
accounted for on the ground that she was aware of having been the
unintentional cause of his illness, and felt that by a little precaution
she might have averted the catastrophe. The idea was constantly present
in Ghisleri's mind, but it lacked detail and clearness, and constituted
at most a rather strong suspicion. Of course it was quite possible, and,
considering Adele's character, more than likely, that she had never been
near the maid during her illness. If she had never had the scarlet fever
herself, it was quite certain. But that was a point easily settled, and
was a very important one.
On the following day, Ghisleri called at the Palazzo Braccio. The
Princess received him, as she always did, without any signs of
satisfaction, but without marked coldness. To her he was always "that
wild Ghisleri," and she thoroughly disapproved of him, wishing that he
would not visit her daughter so often. He was quite aware of the feeling
she entertained towards him, and was always especially careful in his
conversation with her. In spite of her long residence in Rome, as a
Roman, and among Romans, she had remained altogether English in nature.
Laura, English on both sides by her birth, had far less of prejudice
than her mother, and was altogether more of a cosmopolitan in every way.
On the present occasion, Ghisleri led the conversation so as to speak of
her. He began by asking the Princess where she herself meant to spend
the summer, and whether she intended to be with her daughter.
"I hope to be with her a great part of the time," she answered. "I do
not like to think of her as travelling about the world alone. Indeed, I
do not at all approve of her living without a companion, as she insists
upon doing. She is far too young, and people are far too ready to talk
about her."
"She has such wonderful dignity," answered Ghisleri, "that she could do
with impunity what most women could not do at all. Besides, her mourning
protects her for the present, and her child. She is looking wonderfully
well--do you not think so?"
"Yes. When one thinks of all she has suffered, it is amazing. But she
was always strong."
"I should suppose so. Any one else would have caught the scarlet fever."
"As for that," said the Princess, unsuspiciously, "people rarely have it
twice."
"She has had it, then."
"Oh, yes. Both the girls had it at the same time, when they were little
things. Let me see--Laura must have been six years old then. They had it
rather badly, and I remember being terribly anxious about them."
"I see," answered Ghisleri, carelessly. "That accounts for it. But to go
back to what we were speaking of, I wonder that Lady Herbert does not
spend the summer with you at Gerano, if you go there as usual."
"I do not think she will consent to that," said the Princess, rather
coldly. "She says she prefers the north for the baby. It is quite true
that it is often very hot at Gerano."
"Donna Adele was good enough to ask me to go out and spend a day or two
while she is there. It must be very pleasant just now, in the spring
weather."
"Why do you not go?" asked the Princess, with more warmth, for she
preferred that Ghisleri should be where he could not see Laura every
day, as she believed he now did. "You would be doing them both a
kindness. Poor Adele was obliged to go to the country against her
will--she is in such a terribly nervous state. I really do not know what
to make of it."
"What news have you of her?" inquired Ghisleri, in a tone of polite
solicitude. "Is she at all better?"
"She was better after the first few days. Then it appears that she had a
fright--I do not quite understand how it was from what Francesco wrote
to my husband--but it seems to have been one of those odd
accidents--optical illusions, I suppose--which sometimes terrify
people."
"How very unfortunate! What did she fancy she saw?"
"It was absurd, of course!" answered the Princess, who had no special
reason for being reticent on the subject. "It seems that there was a
blue cloak of hers hanging somewhere in her dressing-room,--at a window,
I believe,--and she went in suddenly very early in the morning before it
was quite broad daylight, and took the cloak for a man. In fact she
thought it was poor dear Arden. You know he always used to wear blue
serge clothes. Francesco saw it himself afterwards and says that it was
extraordinarily like. But I cannot understand how any one in their
senses could be deceived in that way. Adele is dreadfully overwrought
and imaginative. She has danced too much this winter, I suppose."
When Ghisleri went away he was almost quite persuaded that Adele was
conscious of having communicated the fever to Arden. Of course, it might
all be mere coincidence, but to him the evidence seemed strong. He wrote
a note to Adele, asking whether he might avail himself of her
invitation, and spend a day at Gerano. Her answer came by return of
post, begging him to come at once, and to stay as long as possible. The
handwriting was so illegible that he had some difficulty in reading it.
To judge from that, at least, Adele was no better.
Before leaving Rome, he thought it best to inform Laura of his intended
visit. He had never spoken of her step-sister in a way to make her
suppose that he disliked her, but Laura knew very well what part he had
played at the time when Adele was spreading slanderous reports, for her
mother had repeated the story precisely as the Prince had told it to
her. Ghisleri, of course, was not aware of this, for Arden had not
mentioned the matter to him, unless his reference to the enemies he and
Laura had in Rome, during the last conversation he had with his friend,
could be taken as implying that Ghisleri knew as much as he himself. But
in any case, he was sure that Laura would be surprised at his going to
Gerano, even for a day, and it was better to warn her beforehand, and
if possible give her some reasonable explanation of his conduct. He
chose to refer his visit at once to motives of curiosity, together with
a natural desire to breathe the purer air of the country, now that he
was able to make the short journey without fatigue or danger.
"I have never been to Gerano," he added. "It is said to be a wonderful
place--one of the finest mediæval castles in this part of the world. I
really wish to see it--they say the air is good--and since Donna Adele
is so kind as to ask me, I shall go."
"You would see it better if you went when my mother and step-father are
there. He would show you everything and give you all sorts of historical
details which Adele has forgotten and which Francesco never knew."
"No doubt, but there is one objection," answered Ghisleri. "They have
never asked me. I am not a favourite with the Princess. I am sure you
know that."
"She thinks you are very wild," said Laura, with a smile. "She
disapproves of you on moral grounds--not at all in the way I used
to--and still do, sometimes," she added, incautiously.
"Still?"
"Oh, it is very foolish! Do not talk about it. When are you going out?"
Laura had undeniably felt a sudden return of her old distrust in him,
when she had heard of the visit. It was natural enough that she should,
considering what she knew. She suspected some new and tortuous
development of his character, and would have instinctively drawn back
from the intimacy she felt was growing up between him and herself, had
she not by experience found out that she might be quite wrong about him
after all. She tried, at the present juncture, to shake off the
sensation which was now far more distasteful to her than it had formerly
been, in proportion as she had fancied that she understood him better.
But she could not altogether succeed. It was too strange, in her
opinion, that he should willingly be Adele's guest, and put himself
under even a slight obligation to her. It showed, she thought, how
individual views could differ in regard to friendship. She was even
rather surprised to find that she was asking herself whether, if
Gianforte and Christina Campodonico possessed a habitable castle and
invited her to stop with them, she would accept, considering that
Gianforte had almost killed her husband's best friend. She
unhesitatingly decided that she would not, and resented Ghisleri's
willingness to receive hospitality from one who, as he well knew, had
foully slandered both Arden and herself. Her doubts were certainly
justifiable to a certain extent. But there was no immediate probability
that they would be cleared away for the present. Ghisleri understood her
perfectly, and wondered whether he were not risking too much in
endangering a friendship so precious to him for the sake of following
out a suspicion which might, in the end, prove to have been altogether
without foundation. On the other hand, his natural obstinacy of purpose
when once called into play was such as not to leave the smallest
hesitation in his mind between doing what he had determined to do, or
not doing it, when he had once made up his mind, irrespective of
consequences. Having lost sight of the virtue of constancy, he clung to
a vicious obstinacy as a substitute.