Carlo had sent word that he would join his mother as early as he was

disengaged from active service, and meantime requested her to proceed to

a villa on Lago Maggiore. Vittoria obtained permission from the countess

to order the route of the carriage through Milan, where she wished to

take up her mother and her maid Giacinta. For other reasons she would

have avoided the city. The thought of entering it was painful with the

shrewdest pain. Dante's profoundly human line seemed branded on the

forehead of Milan.

The morning was dark when they drove through the streets of Bergamo.

Passing one of the open places, Vittoria beheld a great concourse of

volunteer youth and citizens, all of them listening to the voice of one

who stood a few steps above them holding a banner. She gave an outcry

of bitter joy. It was the Chief. On one side of him was Agostino, in the

midst of memorable heads that were unknown to her. The countess refused

to stay, though Vittoria strained her hands together in extreme entreaty

that she might for a few moments hear what the others were hearing. “I

speak for my son, and I forbid it,” Countess Ammiani said. Vittoria fell

back and closed her eyes to cherish the vision. All those faces raised

to the one speaker under the dark sky were beautiful. He had breathed

some new glory of hope in them, making them shine beneath the overcast

heavens, as when the sun breaks from an evening cloud and flushes the

stems of a company of pine-trees.

Along the road to Milan she kept imagining his utterance until her heart

rose with music. A delicious stream of music, thin as poor tears, passed

through her frame, like a life reviving. She reached Milan in a mood to

bear the idea of temporary defeat. Music had forsaken her so long that

celestial reassurance seemed to return with it.

Her mother was at Zotti's, very querulous, but determined not to

leave the house and the few people she knew. She had, as she told her

daughter, fretted so much on her account that she hardly knew whether

she was glad to see her. Tea, of course, she had given up all thoughts

of; but now coffee was rising, and the boasted sweet bread of Lombardy

was something to look at! She trusted that Emilia would soon think of

singing no more, and letting people rest: she might sing when she wanted

money. A letter recently received from Mr. Pericles said that Italy was

her child's ruin, and she hoped Emilia was ready to do as he advised,

and hurry to England, where singing did not upset people, and people

lived like real Christians, not----Vittoria flapped her hand, and

would not hear of the unchristian crimes of the South. As regarded the

expected defence of Milan, the little woman said, that if it brought on

a bombardment, she would call it unpardonable wickedness, and only hoped

that her daughter would repent.

Zotti stood by, interpreting the English to himself by tones. “The

amiable donnina is not of our persuasion,” he observed. “She remains

dissatisfied with patriotic Milan. I have exhibited to her my dabs of

bread through all the processes of making and baking. It is in vain. She

rejects analogy. She is wilful as a principessina: 'Tis so! 'tis not so!

'tis my will! be silent, thou! Signora, I have been treated in that way

by your excellent mother.”

“Zotti has not been paid for three weeks, and he certainly has not

mentioned it or looked it, I will say, Emilia.”

“Zotti has had something to think of during the last three weeks,” said

Vittoria, touching him kindly on the arm.

The confectioner lifted his fingers and his big brown eyes after them,

expressive of the unutterable thoughts. He informed her that he had laid

in a stock of flour, in the expectation that Carlo Alberto would defend

the city: The Milanese were ready to aid him, though some, as Zotti

confessed, had ceased to effervesce; and a great number who were

perfectly ready to fight regarded his tardy appeal to Italian patriotism

very coldly. Zotti set out in person to discover Giacinta. The girl

could hardly fetch her breath when she saw her mistress. She was in

Laura's service, and said that Laura had brought a wounded Englishman

from the field of Custozza. Vittoria hurried to Laura, with whom she

found Merthyr, blue-white as a corpse, having been shot through the

body. His sister was in one of the Lombard hamlets, unaware of his fall;

Beppo had been sent to her.

They noticed one another's embrowned complexions, but embraced silently.

“Twice widowed!” Laura said when they sat together. Laura hushed all

speaking of the war or allusion to a single incident of the miserable

campaign, beyond the bare recital of Vittoria's adventures; yet when

Vicenza by chance was mentioned, she burst out: “They are not cities,

they are living shrieks. They have been made impious for ever. Burn them

to ashes, that they may not breathe foul upon heaven!” She had clung to

the skirts of the army as far as the field of Custozza. “He,” she said,

pointing to the room where Merthyr lay,--“he groans less than the others

I have nursed. Generally, when they looked at me, they appeared obliged

to recollect that it was not I who had hurt them. Poor souls! some ended

in great torment. 'I think of them as the happiest; for pain is a cloak

that wraps you about, and I remember one middle-aged man who died softly

at Custozza, and said, 'Beaten!' To take that thought as your travelling

companion into the gulf, must be worse than dying of agony; at least, I

think so.”

Vittoria was too well used to Laura's way of meeting disaster to expect

from her other than this ironical fortitude, in which the fortitude

leaned so much upon the irony. What really astonished her was the

conception Laura had taken of the might of Austria. Laura did not

directly speak of it, but shadowed it in allusive hints, much as if

she had in her mind the image of an iron roller going over a field of

flowers--hateful, imminent, irresistible. She felt as a leaf that has

been flying before the gale.

Merthyr's wound was severe: Vittoria could not leave him. Her resolution

to stay in Milan brought her into collision with Countess Ammiani, when

the countess reminded her of her promise, sedately informing her that

she was no longer her own mistress, and had a primary duty to fulfil.

She offered to wait three days, or until the safety of the wounded man

was medically certified to. It was incomprehensible to her that Vittoria

should reject her terms; and though it was true that she would not have

listened to a reason, she was indignant at not hearing one given in

mitigation of the offence. She set out alone on her journey, deeply

hurt. The reason was a feminine sentiment, and Vittoria was naturally

unable to speak it. She shrank with pathetic horror from the thought of

Merthyr's rising from his couch to find her a married woman, and desired

most earnestly that her marriage should be witnessed by him. Young women

will know how to reconcile the opposition of the sentiment. Had Merthyr

been only slightly wounded, and sound enough to seem to be able to bear

a bitter shock, she would not have allowed her personal feelings to

cause chagrin to the noble lady. The sight of her dear steadfast friend

prostrate in the cause of Italy, and who, if he lived to rise again,

might not have his natural strength to bear the thought of her loss with

his old brave firmness, made it impossible for her to act decisively in

one direct line of conduct.

Countess Ammiani wrote brief letters from Luino and Pallanza on Lago

Maggiore. She said that Carlo was in the Como mountains; he would expect

to find his bride, and would accuse his mother; “but his mother will be

spared those reproaches,” she added, “if the last shot fired kills, as

it generally does, the bravest and the dearest.”

“If it should!”--the thought rose on a quick breath in Vittoria's bosom,

and the sentiment which held her away dispersed like a feeble smoke, and

showed her another view of her features. She wept with longing for love

and dependence. She was sick of personal freedom, tired of the exercise

of her will, only too eager to give herself to her beloved. The

blessedness of marriage, of peace and dependence, came on her

imagination like a soft breeze from a hidden garden, like sleep. But

this very longing created the resistance to it in the depths of her

soul. 'There was a light as of reviving life, or of pain comforted, when

it was she who was sitting by Merthyr's side, and when at times she saw

the hopeless effort of his hand to reach to hers, or during the long

still hours she laid her head on his pillow, and knew that he breathed

gratefully. The sweetness of helping him, and of making his breathing

pleasant to him, closed much of the world which lay beyond her windows

to her thoughts, and surprised her with an unknown emotion, so strange

to her that when it first swept up her veins she had the fancy of her

having been touched by a supernatural hand, and heard a flying accord of

instruments. She was praying before she knew what prayer was. A crucifix

hung over Merthyr's head. She had looked on it many times, and looked on

it still, without seeing more than the old sorrow. In the night it was

dim. She found herself trying to read the features of the thorn-crowned

Head in the solitary night. She and it were alone with a life that

was faint above the engulphing darkness. She prayed for the life, and

trembled, and shed tears, and would have checked them; they seemed to

be bearing away her little remaining strength. The tears streamed. No

answer was given to her question, “Why do I weep?” She wept when Merthyr

had passed the danger, as she had wept when the hours went by, with

shrouded visages; and though she felt the difference m the springs of

her tears, she thought them but a simple form of weakness showing shade

and light.

These tears were a vanward wave of the sea to follow; the rising of her

voice to heaven was no more than a twitter of the earliest dawn before

the coming of her soul's outcry.

“I have had a weeping fit,” she thought, and resolved to remember it

tenderly, as being associated with her friend's recovery, and a singular

masterful power absolutely to look on the Austrians marching up the

streets of Milan, and not to feel the surging hatred, or the nerveless

despair, which she had supposed must be her alternatives.

It is a mean image to say that the entry of the Austrians into the

reconquered city was like a river of oil permeating a lake of vinegar,

but it presents the fact in every sense. They demanded nothing more than

submission, and placed a gentle foot upon the fallen enemy; and wherever

they appeared they were isolated. The deepest wrath of the city was,

nevertheless, not directed against them, but against Carlo Alberto,

who had pledged his honour to defend it, and had forsaken it. Vittoria

committed a public indiscretion on the day when the king left Milan to

its fate: word whereof was conveyed to Carlo Ammiani, and he wrote to

her.

“It is right that I should tell you what I have heard,” the letter said.

“I have heard that my bride drove up to the crowned traitor, after he

had unmasked himself, and when he was quitting the Greppi palace, and

that she kissed his hand before the people--poor bleeding people of

Milan! This is what I hear in the Val d'Intelvi:--that she despised

the misery and just anger of the people, and, by virtue of her name and

mine, obtained a way for him. How can she have acted so as to give a

colour to this infamous scandal? True or false, it does not affect my

love for her. Still, my dearest, what shall I say? You keep me divided

in two halves. My heart is out of me; and if I had a will, I think I

should be harsh with you. You are absent from my mother at a time when

we are about to strike another blow. Go to her. It is kindness; it is

charity: I do not say duty. I remember that I did write harshly to you

from Brescia. Then our march was so clear in view that a little thing

ruffled me. Was it a little thing? But to applaud the Traitor now! To

uphold him who has spilt our blood only to hand the country over to the

old gaolers! He lent us his army like a Jew, for huge interest. Can

you not read him? If not, cease, I implore you, to think at all for

yourself.

“Is this a lover's letter? I know that my beloved will see the love in

it. To me your acts are fair and good as the chronicle of a saint. I

find you creating suspicion--almost justifying it in others, and putting

your name in the mouth of a madman who denounces you. I shall not speak

more of him. Remember that my faith in you is unchangeable, and I pray

you to have the same in me.

“I sent you a greeting from the Chief. He marched in the ranks from

Bergamo. I saw him on the line of march strip off his coat to shelter a

young lad from the heavy rain. He is not discouraged; none are who have

been near him.

“Angelo is here, and so is our Agostino; and I assure you he loads and

fires a carbine much more deliberately than he composes a sonnet. I am

afraid that your adored Antonio-Pericles fared badly among our fellows,

but I could gather no particulars.

“Oh! the bright two minutes when I held you right in my heart. That spot

on the Vicentino is alone unclouded. If I live I will have that bit of

ground. I will make a temple of it. I could reach it blindfolded.”

A townsman of Milan brought this letter to Vittoria. She despatched

Luigi with her reply, which met the charge in a straightforward

affirmative.

“I was driving to Zotti's by the Greppi palace, when I saw the king come

forth, and the people hooted him. I stood up, and petitioned to kiss his

hand. The people knew me. They did not hoot any more for some time.

“So that you have heard the truth, and you must judge me by it. I cannot

even add that I am sorry, though I strive to wish that I had not been

present. I might wish it really, if I did not feel it to be a cowardly

wish.

“Oh, my Carlo! my lover! my husband! you would not have me go against

my nature? I have seen the king upon the battle-field. He has deigned to

speak to me of Italy and our freedom. I have seen him facing our enemy;

and to see him hooted by the people, and in misfortune and with sad

eyes!--he looked sad and nothing else--and besides, I am sure I know

the king. I mean that I understand him. I am half ashamed to write so

boldly, even to you. I say to myself you should know me, at least; and

if I am guilty of a piece of vanity, you should know that also. Carlo

Alberto is quite unlike other men. He worships success as, much; but

they are not, as he is, so much bettered by adversity. Indeed I do

not believe that he has exact intentions of any sort, or ever had the

intention to betray us, or has done so in reality, that is, meaningly,

of his own will. Count Medole and his party did, as you know, offer

Lombardy to him; and Venice gave herself--brave, noble Venice! Oh! if we

two were there--Venice has England's sea-spirit. But, did we not flatter

the king? And ask yourself, my Carlo, could a king move in such

an enterprise as a common person? Ought we not to be in union with

Sardinia? How can we be if we reject her king? Is it not the only

positive army that, we can look to--I mean regular army? Should we not;

make some excuses for one who is not in our position?

“I feel that I push my questions like waves that fall and cannot get

beyond--they crave so for answers agreeing to them. This should make

me doubt myself, perhaps; but they crowd again, and seem so conclusive

until I have written them down. I am unworthy to struggle with your

intellect; but I say to myself, how unworthy of you I should be if I

did not use my own, such as it is! The poor king; had to conclude an

armistice to save his little kingdom. Perhaps we ought to think of that

sternly. My heart is; filled with pity.

“It cannot but be right that you should know the worst; of me. I call

you my husband, and tremble to be permitted to lean my head on your

bosom for hours, my sweet lover! And yet my cowardice, if I had let the

king go by without a reverential greeting from me, in his adversity,

would have rendered me insufferable to myself. You are hearing me, and

I am compelled to say, that rather than behave so basely I would forfeit

your love, and be widowed till death should offer us for God to join us.

Does your face change to me?

“Dearest, and I say it when the thought of you sets me almost swooning.

I find my hands clasped, and I am muttering I know not what, and I am

blushing. The ground seems to rock; I can barely breathe; my heart is

like a bird caught in the hands of a cruel boy: it will not rest. I fear

everything. I hear a whisper, 'Delay not an instant!' and it is like

a furnace; 'Hasten to him! Speed!' and I seem to totter forward and

drop--I think I have lost you--I am like one dead.

“I remain here to nurse our dear friend Merthyr. For that reason I am

absent from your mother. It is her desire that we should be married.

“Soon, soon, my own soul!

“I seem to be hanging on a tree for you, swayed by such a teazing wind.

“Oh, soon! or I feel that I shall hate any vestige of will that I have

in this head of mine. Not in the heart--it is not there!

“And sometimes I am burning to sing. The voice leaps to my lips; it is

quite like a thing that lives apart--my prisoner.

“It is true, Laura is here with Merthyr.

“Could you come at once?--not here, but to Pallanza? We shall both make

our mother happy. This she wishes, this she lives for, this consoles

her--and oh, this gives me peace! Yes, Merthyr is recovering! I can

leave him without the dread I had; and Laura confesses to the feminine

sentiment, if her funny jealousy of a rival nurse is really simply

feminine. She will be glad of our resolve, I am sure. And then you will

order all my actions; and I shall be certain that they are such as I

would proudly call mine; and I shall be shut away from the world.

Yes; let it be so! Addio. I reserve all sweet names for you. Addio. In

Pallanza:--no not Pallanza--Paradise!

“Hush! and do not smile at me:--it was not my will, I discover, but my

want of will, that distracted me.

“See my last signature of--not Vittoria; for I may sign that again and

still be Emilia Alessandra Ammiani.

“SANDRA BELLONI”

The letter was sealed; Luigi bore it away, and a brief letter to

Countess Ammiani, in Pallanza, as well.

Vittoria was relieved of her anxiety concerning Merthyr by the arrival

of Georgiana, who had been compelled to make her way round by Piacenza

and Turin, where she had left Gambier, with Beppo in attendance on him.

Georgiana at once assumed all the duties of head-nurse, and the more

resolutely because of her brother's evident moral weakness in sighing

for the hand of a fickle girl to smooth his pillow. “When he is stronger

you can sit beside him a little,” she said to Vittoria, who surrendered

her post without a struggle, and rarely saw him, though Laura told her

that his frequent exclamation was her name, accompanied by a soft look

at his sister--“which would have stirred my heart like poor old Milan

last March,” Laura added, with a lift of her shoulders.

Georgiana's icy manner appeared infinitely strange to Vittoria when

she heard from Merthyr that his sister had become engaged to Captain

Gambier.

“Nothing softens these women,” said Laura, putting Georgiana in a class.

“I wish you could try the effect of your winning Merthyr,” Vittoria

suggested.

“I remember that when I went to my husband, I likewise wanted every

woman of my acquaintance to be married.” Laura sighed deeply. “What

is this poor withered body of mine now? It feels like an old volcano,

cindery, with fire somewhere:--a charming bride! My dear, if I live till

my children make me a grandmother, I shall look on the love of men and

women as a toy that I have played with. A new husband? I must be dragged

through the Circles of Dante before I can conceive it, and then I should

loathe the stranger.”

News came that the volunteers were crushed. It was time for Vittoria

to start for Pallanza, and she thought of her leave-taking; a final

leave-taking, in one sense, to the friends who had cared too much for

her. Laura delicately drew Georgiana aside in the sick-room, which she

would not quit, and alluded to the necessity for Vittoria's departure

without stating exactly wherefore: but Georgiana was a Welshwoman.

Partly to show her accurate power of guessing, and chiefly that she

might reprove Laura's insulting whisper, which outraged and irritated

her as much as if “Oh! your poor brother!” had been exclaimed, she made

display of Merthyr's manly coldness by saying aloud, “You mean, that

she is going to her marriage.” Laura turned her face to Merthyr. He had

striven to rise on his elbow, and had dropped flat in his helplessness.

Big tears were rolling down his cheeks. His articulation failed him,

beyond a reiterated “No, no,” pitiful to hear, and he broke into

childish sobs. Georgiana hurried Laura from the room. By-and-by the

doctor was promptly summoned, and it was Georgiana herself, miserably

humbled, who obtained Vittoria's sworn consent to keep the life in

Merthyr by lingering yet awhile.

Meantime Luigi brought a letter from Pallanza in Carlo's handwriting.

This was the burden of it:

“I am here, and you are absent. Hasten!”

CHAPTER XXXVI

A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT

The Lenkenstein ladies returned to Milan proudly in the path of the

army which they had followed along the city walls on the black March

midnight. The ladies of the Austrian aristocracy generally had to be

exiles from Vienna, and were glad to flock together even in an alien

city. Anna and Lena were aware of Vittoria's residence in Milan, through

the interchange of visits between the Countess of Lenkenstein and her

sister Signora Piaveni. They heard also of Vittoria's prospective and

approaching marriage to Count Ammiani. The Duchess of Graatli, who had

forborne a visit to her unhappy friends, lest her Austrian face should

wound their sensitiveness, was in company with the Lenkensteins one day,

when Irma di Karski called on them. Irma had come from Lago

Maggiore, where she had left her patron, as she was pleased to term

Antonio-Pericles. She was full of chatter of that most worthy man's

deplorable experiences of Vittoria's behaviour to him during the war,

and of many things besides. According to her account, Vittoria had

enticed him from place to place with promises that the next day, and the

next day, and the day after, she would be ready to keep her engagement

to go to London, and at last she had given him the slip and left him to

be plucked like a pullet by a horde of volunteer banditti, out of whose

hands Antonio-Pericles-“one of our richest millionaires in Europe,

certainly our richest amateur,” said Irma--escaped in fit outward

condition for the garden of Eden.

Count Karl was lying on the sofa, and went into endless invalid's

laughter at the picture presented by Irma of the 'wild man' wanderings

of poor infatuated Pericles, which was exaggerated, though not

intentionally, for Irma repeated the words and gestures of Pericles in

the recital of his tribulations. Being of a somewhat similar physical

organization, she did it very laughably. Irma declared that Pericles was

cured of his infatuation. He had got to Turin, intending to quit Italy

for ever, when--“he met me,” said Irma modestly.

“And heard that the war was at an end,” Count Karl added.

“And he has taken the superb Villa Ricciardi, on Lago Maggiore, where he

will have a troupe of singers, and perform operas, in which I believe

I may possibly act as prima donna. The truth is, I would do anything to

prevent him from leaving the country.”

But Irma had more to say; with “I bear no malice,” she commenced it. The

story she had heard was that Count Ammiani, after plighting himself to

a certain signorina, known as Vittoria Campa, had received tidings that

she was one of those persons who bring discredit on Irma's profession.

“Gifted by nature, I can acknowledge,” said Irma; “but devoured by

vanity--a perfect slave to the appetite for praise; ready to forfeit

anything for flattery! Poor signor Antonio-Pericles!--he knows her.” And

now Count Ammiani, persuaded to reason by his mother, had given her up.

There was nothing more positive, for Irma had seen him in the society of

Countess Violetta d'Isorella.

Anna and Lena glanced at their brother Karl.

“I should not allude to what is not notorious,” Irma pursued. “They

are always together. My dear Antonio-Pericles is most amusing in his

expressions of delight at it. For my part, though she served me an evil

turn once,--you will hardly believe, ladies, that in her jealousy of me

she was guilty of the most shameful machinations to get me out of the

way on the night of the first performance of Camilla,--but, for my part,

I bear no malice. The creature is an inveterate rebel, and I dislike her

for that, I do confess.”

“The signorina Vittoria Campa is my particular and very dear friend,”

said the duchess.

“She is not the less an inveterate rebel,” said Anna.

Count Karl gave a long-drawn sigh. “Alas, that she should have brought

discredit on Fraulein di Karski's profession!”

The duchess hurried straightway to Laura, with whom was Count

Serabiglione, reviewing the present posture of affairs from the

condescending altitudes of one that has foretold it. Laura and Amalia

embraced and went apart. During their absence Vittoria came down to

the count and listened to a familiar illustration of his theory of the

relations which should exist between Italy and Austria, derived from the

friendship of those two women.

“What I wish you to see, signorina, is that such an alliance is

possible; and, if we supply the brains, as we do, is by no means likely

to be degrading. These bears are absolutely on their knees to us for

good fellowship. You have influence, you have amazing wit, you have

unparalleled beauty, and, let me say it with the utmost sadness, you

have now had experience. Why will you not recognize facts? Italian

unity! I have exposed the fatuity--who listens? Italian freedom! I do

not attempt to reason with my daughter. She is pricked by an envenomed

fly of Satan. Yet, behold her and the duchess! It is the very union I

preach; and I am, I declare to you, signorina, in great danger. I feel

it, but I persist. I am in danger” (Count Serabiglione bowed his head

low) “of the transcendent sin of scorn of my species.”

The little nobleman swayed deploringly in his chair. “Nothing is so

perilous for a soul's salvation as that. The one sane among madmen! The

one whose reason is left to him among thousands who have forsaken it! I

beg you to realize the idea. The Emperor, as I am given to understand,

is about to make public admission of my services. I shall be all the

more hated. Yet it is a considerable gain. I do not deny that I esteem

it as a promotion for my services. I shall not be the first martyr in

this world, signorina.”

Count Serabiglione produced a martyr's smile.

“The profits of my expected posts will be,” he was saying, with a

reckoning eye cast upward into his cranium for accuracy, when Laura

returned, and Vittoria ran out to the duchess. Amalia repeated Irma's

tattle. A curious little twitching of the brows at Violetta d'Isorella's

name marked the reception of it.

“She is most lovely,” Vittoria said.

“And absolutely reckless.”

“She is an old friend of Count Ammiani's.”

“And you have an old friend here. But the old friend of a young woman--I

need not say further than that it is different.”

The duchess used the privilege of her affection, and urged Vittoria not

to trifle with her lover's impatience.

Admitted to the chamber where Merthyr lay, she was enabled to make

allowance for her irresolution. The face of the wounded man was like a

lake-water taking light from Vittoria's presence.

“This may go on for weeks,” she said to Laura.

Three days later, Vittoria received an order from the Government to quit

the city within a prescribed number of hours, and her brain was racked

to discover why Laura appeared so little indignant at the barbarous

act of despotism. Laura undertook to break the bad news to Merthyr. The

parting was as quiet and cheerful as, in the opposite degree, Vittoria

had thought it would be melancholy and regretful. “What a Government!”

Merthyr said, and told her to let him hear of any changes. “All changes

that please my friends please me.”

Vittoria kissed his forehead with one grateful murmur of farewell to the

bravest heart she had ever known. The going to her happiness seemed more

like going to something fatal until she reached the Lago Maggiore. There

she saw September beauty, and felt as if the splendour encircling her

were her bridal decoration. But no bridegroom stood to greet her on

the terrace-steps between the potted orange and citron-trees. Countess

Ammiani extended kind hands to her at arms' length.

“You have come,” she said. “I hope that it is not too late.”

Vittoria was a week without sight of her lover: nor did Countess Ammiani

attempt to explain her words, or speak of other than common daily

things. In body and soul Vittoria had taken a chill. The silent blame

resting on her in this house called up her pride, so that she would not

ask any questions; and when Carlo came, she wanted warmth to melt her.

Their meeting was that of two passionless creatures. Carlo kissed her

loyally, and courteously inquired after her health and the health of

friends in Milan, and then he rallied his mother. Agostino had arrived

with him, and the old man, being in one of his soft moods, unvexed by

his conceits, Vittoria had some comfort from him of a dull kind. She

heard Carlo telling his mother that he must go in the morning. Agostino

replied to her quick look at him, “I stay;” and it seemed like a little

saved from the wreck, for she knew that she could speak to Agostino as

she could not to the countess. When his mother prepared to retire,

Carlo walked over to his bride, and repeated rapidly and brightly his

inquiries after friends in Milan. She, with a pure response to his

natural-unnatural manner, spoke of Merthyr Powys chiefly: to which

he said several times, “Dear fellow!” and added, “I shall always love

Englishmen for his sake.”

This gave her one throb. “I could not leave him, Carlo.”

“Certainly not, certainly not,” said Carlo. “I should have been happy to

wait on him myself. I was busy; I am still. I dare say you have guessed

that I have a new journal in my head: the Pallanza Iris is to be

the name of it;--to be printed in three colours, to advocate three

principles, in three styles. The Legitimists, the Moderates, and the

Republicans are to proclaim themselves in its columns in prose, poetry,

and hotch-potch. Once an editor, always an editor. The authorities

suspect that something of the sort is about to be planted, so I can only

make occasional visits here:--therefore, as you will believe,”--Carlo

let his voice fall--“I have good reason to hate them still. They may

cease to persecute me soon.”

He insisted upon lighting his mother to her room. Vittoria and Agostino

sat talking of the Chief and the minor events of the war--of Luciano,

Marco, Giulio, and Ugo Corte--till the conviction fastened on them

that Carlo would not return, when Agostino stood up and said, yawning

wearily, “I'll talk further to you, my child, tomorrow.”

She begged that it might be now.

“No; to-morrow,” said he.

“Now, now!” she reiterated, and brought down a reproof from his

fore-finger.

“The poetic definition of 'now' is that it is a small boat, my daughter,

in which the female heart is constantly pushing out to sea and sinking.

'To-morrow' is an island in the deeps, where grain grows. When I land

you there, I will talk to you.”

She knew that he went to join Carlo after he had quitted her.

Agostino was true to his promise next day. He brought her nearer to what

she had to face, though he did not help her vision much. Carlo had gone

before sunrise.

They sat on the terrace above the lake, screened from the sunlight by

thick myrtle bushes. Agostino smoked his loosely-rolled cigarettes, and

Vittoria sipped chocolate and looked upward to the summit of Motterone,

with many thoughts and images in her mind.

He commenced by giving her a love-message from Carlo. “Hold fast to it

that he means it: conduct is never a straight index where the heart's

involved,” said the chuckling old man; “or it is not in times like ours.

You have been in the wrong, and your having a good excuse will not help

you before the deciding fates. Woman that you are! did you not think

that because we were beaten we were going to rest for a very long while,

and that your Carlo of yesterday was going to be your Carlo of to-day?”

Vittoria tacitly confessed to it.

“Ay,” he pursued, “when you wrote to him in the Val d'Intelvi, you

supposed you had only to say, 'I am ready,' which was then the case. You

made your summer and left the fruits to hang, and now you are astounded

that seasons pass and fruits drop. You should have come to this place,

if but for a pair of days, and so have fixed one matter in the chapter.

This is how the chapter has run on. I see I talk to a stunned head; you

are thinking that Carlo's love for you can't have changed: and it has

not, but occasion has gone and times have changed. Now listen. The

countess desired the marriage. Carlo could not go to you in Milan with

the sword in his hand. Therefore you had to come to him. He waited for

you, perhaps for his own preposterous lover's sake as much as to make

his mother's heart easy. If she loses him she loses everything, unless

he leaves a wife to her care and the hope that her House will not be

extinct, which is possibly not much more the weakness of old aristocracy

than of human nature.

“Meantime, his brothers in arms had broken up and entered Piedmont,

and he remained waiting for you still. You are thinking that he had

not waited a month. But if four months finished Lombardy, less than one

month is quite sufficient to do the same for us little beings. He met

the Countess d'Isorella here. You have to thank her for seeing him at

all, so don't wrinkle your forehead yet. Luciano Romara is drilling

his men in Piedmont; Angelo Guidascarpi has gone there. Carlo was

considering it his duty to join Luciano, when he met this lady, and she

has apparently succeeded in altering his plans. Luciano and his band

will go to Rome. Carlo fancies that another blow will be struck for

Lombardy. This lady should know; the point is, whether she can be

trusted. She persists in declaring that Carlo's duty is to remain,

and--I cannot tell how, for I am as a child among women--she has

persuaded him of her sincerity. Favour me now with your clearest

understanding, and deliver it from feminine sensations of any

description for just two minutes.”

Agostino threw away the end of a cigarette and looked for firmness in

Vittoria's eyes.

“This Countess d'Isorella is opposed to Carlo's marriage at present. She

says that she is betraying the king's secrets, and has no reliance on

a woman. As a woman you will pardon her, for it is the language of your

sex. You are also denounced by Barto Rizzo, a madman--he went mad as

fire, and had to be chained at Varese. In some way or other Countess

d'Isorella got possession of him; she has managed to subdue him. A

sword-cut he received once in Verona has undoubtedly affected his brain,

or caused it to be affected under strong excitement. He is at her villa,

and she says--perhaps with some truth--that Carlo would in several ways

lose his influence by his immediate marriage with you. The reason must

have weight; otherwise he would fulfil his mother's principal request,

and be at the bidding of his own desire. There; I hope I have spoken

plainly.”

Agostino puffed a sigh of relief at the conclusion of his task.

Vittoria had been too strenuously engaged in defending the steadiness of

her own eyes to notice the shadow of an assumption of frankness in his.

She said that she understood.

She got away to her room like an insect carrying a load thrice its own

size. All that she could really gather from Agostino's words was, that

she felt herself rocking in a tower, and that Violetta d'Isorella was

beautiful. She had striven hard to listen to him with her wits alone,

and her sensations subsequently revenged themselves in this fashion. The

tower rocked and struck a bell that she discovered to be her betraying

voice uttering cries of pain. She was for hours incapable of meeting

Agostino again. His delicate intuition took the harshness off the

meeting. He led her even to examine her state of mind, and to discern

the fancies from the feelings by which she was agitated. He said

shrewdly and bluntly, “You can master pain, but not doubt. If you show

a sign of unhappiness, remember that I shall know you doubt both what I

have told you, and Carlo as well.”

Vittoria fenced: “But is there such a thing as happiness?”

“I should imagine so,” said Agostino, touching her cheek, “and

slipperiness likewise. There's patience at any rate; only you must dig

for it. You arrive at nothing, but the eternal digging constitutes the

object gained. I recollect when I was a raw lad, full of ambition, in

love, and without a franc in my pockets, one night in Paris, I found

myself looking up at a street lamp; there was a moth in it. He couldn't

get out, so he had very little to trouble his conscience. I think he was

near happiness: he ought to have been happy. My luck was not so good, or

you wouldn't see me still alive, my dear.”

Vittoria sighed for a plainer speaker.

CHAPTER XXXVII

ON LAGO MAGGIORE

Carlo's hours were passed chiefly across the lake, in the Piedmontese

valleys. When at Pallanza he was restless, and he shunned the two or

three minutes of privacy with his betrothed which the rigorous Italian

laws besetting courtship might have allowed him to take. He had

perpetually the look of a man starting from wine. It was evident that he

and Countess d'Isorella continued to hold close communication, for she

came regularly to the villa to meet him. On these occasions Countess

Ammiani accorded her one ceremonious interview, and straightway locked

herself in her room. Violetta's grace of ease and vivacity soared too

high to be subject to any hostile judgement of her character. She seemed

to rely entirely on the force of her beauty, and to care little for

those who did not acknowledge it. She accepted public compliments quite

royally, nor was Agostino backward in offering them. “And you have

a voice, you know,” he sometimes said aside to Vittoria; but she had

forgotten how easily she could swallow great praise of her voice; she

had almost forgotten her voice. Her delight was to hang her head above

inverted mountains in the lake, and dream that she was just something

better than the poorest of human creatures. She could not avoid putting

her mind in competition with this brilliant woman's, and feeling

eclipsed; and her weakness became pitiable. But Countess d'Isorella

mentioned once that Pericles was at the Villa Ricciardi, projecting

magnificent operatic entertainments. The reviving of a passion to sing

possessed Vittoria like a thirst for freedom, and instantly confused all

the reflected images within her, as the fury of a sudden wind from the

high Alps scourges the glassy surface of the lake. She begged Countess

Ammiani's permission that she might propose to Pericles to sing in his

private operatic company, in any part, at the shortest notice.

“You wish to leave me?” said the countess, and resolutely conceived it.

Speaking to her son on this subject, she thought it necessary to make

some excuse for a singer's instinct, who really did not live save on the

stage. It amused Carlo; he knew when his mother was really angry with

persons she tried to shield from the anger of others; and her not seeing

the wrong on his side in his behaviour to his betrothed was laughable.

Nevertheless she had divined the case more correctly than he: the

lover was hurt. After what he had endured, he supposed, with all his

forgiveness, that he had an illimitable claim upon his bride's patience.

He told his another to speak to her openly.

“Why not you, my Carlo?” said the countess.

“Because, mother, if I speak to her, I shall end by throwing out my arms

and calling for the priest.”

“I would clap hands to that.”

“We will see; it may be soon or late, but it can't be now.”

“How much am I to tell her, Carlo?”

“Enough to keep her from fretting.”

The countess then asked herself how much she knew. Her habit of

receiving her son's word and will as supreme kept her ignorant of

anything beyond the outline of his plans; and being told to speak openly

of them to another, she discovered that her acquiescing imagination

supplied the chief part of her knowledge. She was ashamed also to have

it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered every detail of his

occupation, so that she could not argue against him, and had to submit

to see her dearest wishes lightly swept aside.

“I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess d'Isorella; not the

afterthought,” she said to Vittoria.

“She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani.”

“Call me mother now and then. Yes; she is beautiful. She has a bad

name.”

“Envy must have given it, I think.”

“Of course she provokes envy. But I say that her name is bad, as envy

could not make it. She is a woman who goes on missions, and carries

a husband into society like a passport. You have only thought of her

beauty?”

“I can see nothing else,” said Vittoria, whose torture at the sight of

the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous pleading on its behalf.

“In my time Beauty was a sinner,” the countess resumed. “My confessor

has filled my ears with warnings that it is a net to the soul, a weapon

for devils. May the saints of Paradise make bare the beauty of this

woman. She has persuaded Carlo that she is serving the country. You have

let him lie here alone in a fruitless bed, silly girl. He stayed for you

while his comrades called him to Vercelli, where they are assembled.

The man whom he salutes as his Chief gave him word to go there. They

are bound for Rome. Ah me! Rome is a great name, but Lombardy is Carlo's

natal home, and Lombardy bleeds. You were absent--how long you were

absent! If you could know the heaviness of those days of his waiting for

you. And it was I who kept him here! I must have omitted a prayer, for

he would have been at Vercelli now with Luciano and Emilio, and you

might have gone to him; but he met this woman, who has convinced him

that Piedmont will make a Winter march, and that his marriage must be

delayed.” The countess raised her face and drooped her hands from the

wrists, exclaiming, “If I have lately omitted one prayer, enlighten me,

blessed heaven! I am blind; I cannot see for my son; I am quite blind. I

do not love the woman; therefore I doubt myself. You, my daughter, tell

me your thought of her, tell me what you think. Young eyes observe;

young heads are sometimes shrewd in guessing.”

Vittoria said, after a pause, “I will believe her to be true, if she

supports the king.” It was hardly truthful speaking on her part.

“How can Carlo have been persuaded!” the countess sighed.

“By me?” Victoria asked herself, and for a moment she was exulting.

She spoke from that emotion when it had ceased to animate her.

“Carlo was angry with the king. He echoed Agostino, but Agostino does

not sting as he did, and Carlo cannot avoid seeing what the king has

sacrificed. Perhaps the Countess d'Isorella has shown him promises of

fresh aid in the king's handwriting. Suffering has made Carlo Alberto

one with the Republicans, if he had other ambitions once. And Carlo

dedicates his blood to Lombardy: he does rightly. Dear countess--my

mother! I have made him wait for me; I will be patient in waiting for

him. I know that Countess d'Isorella is intimate with the king. There

is a man named Barto Rizzo, who thinks me a guilty traitress, and she

is making use of this man. That must be her reason for prohibiting

the marriage. She cannot be false if she is capable of uniting extreme

revolutionary agents and the king in one plot, I think; I do not know.”

Vittoria concluded her perfect expression of confidence with this

atoning doubtfulness.

Countess Ammiani obtained her consent that she would not quit her side.

After Violetta had gone, Carlo, though he shunned secret interviews,

addressed his betrothed as one who was not strange to his occupation

and the trial his heart was undergoing. She could not doubt that she was

beloved, in spite of the colourlessness and tonelessness of a love that

appealed to her intellect. He showed her a letter he had received from

Laura, laughing at its abuse of Countess d'Isorella, and the sarcasms

levelled at himself.

In this letter Laura said that she was engaged in something besides

nursing.

Carlo pointed his finger to the sentence, and remarked, “I must have

your promise--a word from you is enough--that you will not meddle with

any intrigue.”

Vittoria gave the promise, half trusting it to bring the lost bloom of

their love to him; but he received it as a plain matter of necessity.

Certain of his love, she wondered painfully that it should continue so

barren of music.

“Why am I to pledge myself that I will be useless?” she asked. “You

mean, my Carlo, that I am to sit still, and watch, and wait.”

He answered, “I will tell you this much: I can be struck vitally through

you. In the game I am playing, I am able to defend myself. If you enter

it, distraction begins. Stay with my mother.”

“Am I to know nothing?”

“Everything--in good time.”

“I might--might I not help you, my Carlo?”

“Yes; and nobly too. And I show you the way.”

Agostino and Carlo made an expedition to Turin. Before he went, Carlo

took her in his arms.

“Is it coming?” she said, shutting her eyelids like a child expecting

the report of firearms.

He pressed his lips to the closed eyes. “Not yet; but are you growing

timid?”

His voice seemed to reprove her.

She could have told him that keeping her in the dark among unknown

terrors ruined her courage; but the minutes were too precious, his touch

too sweet. In eyes and hands he had become her lover again. The blissful

minutes rolled away like waves that keep the sunshine out at sea.

Her solitude in the villa was beguiled by the arrival of the score of an

operatic scena, entitled “HAGAR,” by Rocco Ricci, which she fancied that

either Carlo or her dear old master had sent, and she devoured it. She

thought it written expressly for her. With HAGAR she communed during

the long hours, and sang herself on to the verge of an imagined desert

beyond the mountain-shadowed lake and the last view of her beloved

Motterone. Hagar's face of tears in the Brerawas known to her; and Hagar

in her 'Addio' gave the living voice to that dumb one. Vittoria revelled

in the delicious vocal misery. She expanded with the sorrow of poor

Hagar, whose tears refreshed her, and parted her from her recent

narrowing self-consciousness. The great green mountain fronted her

like a living presence. Motterone supplied the place of the robust and

venerable patriarch, whom she reproached, and worshipped, but with a

fathomless burdensome sense of cruel injustice, deeper than the tears or

the voice which spoke of it: a feeling of subjected love that was like

a mother's giving suck to a detested child. Countess Ammiani saw the

abrupt alteration of her step and look with a dim surprise. “What do

you conceal from me?” she asked, and supplied the answer by charitably

attributing it to news that the signora Piaveni was coming.

When Laura came, the countess thanked her, saying, “I am a wretched

companion for this boiling head.”

Laura soon proved to her that she had been the best, for after very few

hours Vittoria was looking like the Hagar on the canvas.

A woman such as Violetta d'Isorella was of the sort from which Laura

shrank with all her feminine power of loathing; but she spoke of her

with some effort at personal tolerance until she heard of Violetta's

stipulation for the deferring of Carlo's marriage, and contrived to

guess that Carlo was reserved and unfamiliar with his betrothed. Then

she cried out, “Fool that he is! Is it ever possible to come to the end

of the folly of men? She has inflamed his vanity. She met him when you

were holding him waiting, and no doubt she commenced with lamentations

over the country, followed by a sigh, a fixed look, a cheerful air, and

the assurance to him that she knew it--uttered as if through the keyhole

of the royal cabinet--she knew that Sardinia would break the Salasco

armistice in a mouth:--if only, if the king could be sure of support

from the youth of Lombardy.”

“Do you suspect the unhappy king?” Vittoria interposed.

“Grasp your colours tight,” said Laura, nodding sarcastic approbation of

such fidelity, and smiling slightly. “There has been no mention of the

king. Countess d'Isorella is a spy and a tool of the Jesuits, taking

pay from all parties--Austria as well, I would swear. Their object is

to paralyze the march on Rome, and she has won Carlo for them. I am told

that Barto Rizzo is another of her conquests. Thus she has a madman and

a fool, and what may not be done with a madman and a fool? However, I

have set a watch on her. She must have inflamed Carlo's vanity. He has

it, just as they all have. There's trickery: I would rather behold the

boy charging at the head of a column than putting faith in this base

creature. She must have simulated well,” Laura went on talking to

herself.

“What trickery?” said Vittoria.

“He was in love with the woman when he was a lad,” Laura replied, and

pertinently to Vittoria's feelings. This threw the moist shade across

her features.

Beppo in Turin and Luigi on the lake were the watch set on Countess

d'Isorella; they were useless except to fortify Laura's suspicions. The

Duchess of Graatli wrote mere gossip from Milan. She mentioned that Anna

of Lenkenstein had visited with her the tomb of her brother Count

Paul at Bologna, and had returned in double mourning; and that Madame

Sedley--“the sister of our poor ruined Pierson”--had obtained grace,

for herself at least, from Anna, by casting herself at Anna's feet,--and

that they were now friends.

Vittoria felt ashamed of Adela.

When Carlo returned, the signora attacked him boldly with all her

weapons; reproached him; said, “Would my husband have treated me in such

a manner?” Carlo twisted his moustache and stroked his young beard

for patience. They passed from room to balcony and terrace, and Laura

brought him back into company without cessation of her fire of questions

and sarcasms, saying, “No, no; we will speak of these things publicly.”

She appealed alternately to Agostino, Vittoria, and Countess Ammiani for

support, and as she certainly spoke sense, Carlo was reduced to gloom

and silence. Laura then paused. “Surely you have punished your bride

enough?” she said; and more softly, “Brother of my Giacomo! you are

under an evil spell.”

Carlo started up in anger. Bending to Vittoria, he offered her his hand

to lead her out, They went together.

“A good sign,” said the countess.

“A bad sign!” Laura sighed. “If he had taken me out for explanation! But

tell me, my Agostino, are you the woman's dupe?”

“I have been,” Agostino admitted frankly.

“You did really put faith in her?”

“She condescends to be so excessively charming.”

“You could not advance a better reason.”

“It is one of our best; perhaps our very best, where your sex is

concerned, signora.”

“You are her dupe no more?”

“No more. Oh, dear no!”

“You understand her now, do you?”

“For the very reason, signora, that I have been her dupe. That is, I am

beginning to understand her. I am not yet in possession of the key.”

“Not yet in possession!” said Laura contemptuously; “but, never mind.

Now for Carlo.”

“Now for Carlo. He declares that he never has been deceived by her.”

“He is perilously vain,” sighed the signora.

“Seriously”--Agostino drew out the length of his beard--“I do not

suppose that he has been--boys, you know, are so acute. He fancies he

can make her of service, and he shows some skill.”

“The skill of a fish to get into the net!”

“My dearest signora, you do not allow for the times. I

remember”--Agostino peered upward through his eyelashes in a way that

he had--“I remember seeing in a meadow a gossamer running away with a

spider-thread. It was against all calculation. But, observe: there were

exterior agencies at work: a stout wind blew. The ordinary reckoning

is based on calms. Without the operation of disturbing elements, the

spider-thread would have gently detained the gossamer.”

“Is that meant for my son?” Countess Ammiani asked slowly, with

incredulous emphasis.

Agostino and Laura, laughing in their hearts at the mother's mysterious

veneration for Carlo, had to explain that 'gossamer' was a poetic,

generic term, to embrace the lighter qualities of masculine youth.

A woman's figure passed swiftly by the window, which led Laura to

suppose that the couple outside had parted. She ran forth, calling to

one of them, but they came hand in hand, declaring that they had seen

neither woman nor man. “And I am happy,” Vittoria whispered. She looked

happy, pale though she was.

“It is only my dreadful longing for rest which makes me pale,” she said

to Laura, when they were alone. “Carlo has proved to me that he is wiser

than I am.”

“A proof that you love Carlo, perhaps,” Laura rejoined.

“Dearest, he speaks more gently of the king.”

“It may be cunning, or it may be carelessness.”

“Will nothing satisfy you, wilful sceptic? He is quite alive to the

Countess d'Isorella's character. He told me how she dazzled him once.”

“Not how she has entangled him now?”

“It is not true. He told me what I should like to dream over without

talking any more to anybody. Ah, what a delight! to have known him, as

you did, when he was a boy. Can one who knew him then mean harm to him?

I am not capable of imagining it. No; he will not abandon poor broken

Lombardy, and he is right; and it is my duty to sit and wait. No shadow

shall come between us. He has said it, and I have said it. We have but

one thing to fear, which is contemptible to fear; so I am at peace.”

“Love-sick,” was Laura's mental comment. Yet when Carlo explained his

position to her next day, she was milder in her condemnation of him, and

even admitted that a man must be guided by such brains as he possesses.

He had conceived that his mother had a right to claim one month from

him at the close of the war; he said this reddening. Laura nodded. He

confessed that he was irritated when he met the Countess d'Isorella,

with whom, to his astonishment, he found Barto Rizzo. She had picked him

up, weak from a paroxysm, on the high-road to Milan. “And she tamed the

brute,” said Carlo, in admiration of her ability; “she saw that he was

plot-mad, and she set him at work on a stupendous plot; agents running

nowhere, and scribblings concentring in her work-basket. You smile at

me, as if I were a similar patient, signora. But I am my own agent. I

have personally seen all my men in Turin and elsewhere. Violetta has not

one grain of love for her country; but she can be made to serve it. As

for me, I have gone too far to think of turning aside and drilling with

Luciano. He may yet be diverted from Rome, to strike another blow for

Lombardy. The Chief, I know, has some religious sentiment about Rome. So

might I have; it is the Head of Italy. Let us raise the body first. And

we have been beaten here. Great Gods! we will have another fight for it

on the same spot, and quickly. Besides, I cannot face Luciano and tell

him why I was away from him in the dark hour. How can I tell him that I

was lingering to bear a bride to the altar? while he and the rest--poor

fellows! Hard enough to have to mention it to you, signora!”

She understood his boyish sense of shame. Making smooth allowances for a

feeling natural to his youth and the circumstances, she said, “I am your

sister, for you were my husband's brother in arms, Carlo. We two speak

heart to heart: I sometimes fancy you have that voice: you hurt me with

it more than you know; gladden me too! My Carlo, I wish to hear why

Countess d'Isorella objects to your marriage.”

“She does not object.”

“An answer that begins by quibbling is not propitious. She opposes it.”

“For this reason: you have not forgotten the bronze butterfly?”

“I see more clearly,” said Laura, with a start.

“There appears to be no cure for the brute's mad suspicion of her,”

Carlo pursued: “and he is powerful among the Milanese. If my darling

takes my name, he can damage much of my influence, and--you know what

there is to be dreaded from a fanatic.”

Laura nodded, as if in full agreement with him, and said, after

meditating a minute, “What sort of a lover is this!”

She added a little laugh to the singular interjection.

“Yes, I have also thought of a secret marriage,” said Carlo, stung by

her penetrating instinct so that he was enabled to read the meaning in

her mind.

“The best way, when you are afflicted by a dilemma of such a character,

my Carlo,” the signora looked at him, “is to take a chess-table and

make your moves on it. 'King--my duty;' 'Queen--my passion;' 'Bishop--my

social obligation;' 'Knight--my what-you-will and my round-the-corner

wishes.' Then, if you find that queen may be gratified without

endangering king, and so forth, why, you may follow your inclinations;

and if not, not. My Carlo, you are either enviably cool, or you are an

enviable hypocrite.”

“The matter is not quite so easily settled as that,” said Carlo.

On the whole, though against her preconception, Laura thought him an

honest lover, and not the player of a double game. She saw that Vittoria

should have been with him in the critical hour of defeat, when his

passions were down, and heaven knows what weakness of our common

manhood, that was partly pride, partly love-craving, made his nature

waxen to every impression; a season, as Laura knew, when the mistress of

a loyal lover should not withhold herself from him. A nature tender like

Carlo's, and he bearing an enamoured heart, could not, as Luciano Romara

had done, pass instantly from defeat to drill. And vain as Carlo was

(the vanity being most intricate and subtle, like a nervous fluid), he

was very open to the belief that he could diplomatize as well as fight,

and lead a movement yet better than follow it. Even so the signora tried

to read his case.

They were all, excepting Countess Ammiani (“who will never, I fear, do

me this honour,” Violetta wrote, and the countess said, “Never,” and

quoted a proverb), about to pass three or four days at the villa of

Countess d'Isorella. Before they set out, Vittoria received a portentous

envelope containing a long scroll, that was headed “YOUR CRIMES,”

and detailing a lest of her offences against the country, from the

revelation of the plot in her first letter to Wilfrid, to services

rendered to the enemy during the war, up to the departure of Charles

Albert out of forsaken Milan.

“B. R.” was the undisguised signature at the end of the scroll.

Things of this description restored her old war-spirit to Vittoria.

She handed the scroll to Laura; Laura, in great alarm, passed it on to

Carlo. He sent for Angelo Guidascarpi in haste, for Carlo read it as

an ante-dated justificatory document to some mischievous design, and

he desired that hands as sure as his own, and yet more vigilant eyes,

should keep watch over his betrothed.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

VIOLETTA D'ISORELLA

The villa inhabited by Countess d'Isorella was on the water's

edge, within clear view of the projecting Villa Ricciardi, in that

darkly-wooded region of the lake which leads up to the Italian-Swiss

canton.

Violetta received here an envoy from Anna of Lenkenstein, direct out of

Milan: an English lady, calling herself Mrs. Sedley, and a particular

friend of Countess Anna. At the first glance Violetta saw that her

visitor had the pretension to match her arts against her own; so, to

sound her thoroughly, she offered her the hospitalities of the villa

for a day or more. The invitation was accepted. Much to Violetta's

astonishment, the lady betrayed no anxiety to state the exact terms

of her mission: she appeared, on the contrary, to have an unbounded

satisfaction in the society of her hostess, and prattled of herself and

Antonio-Pericles, and her old affection for Vittoria, with the wiliest

simplicity, only requiring to be assured at times that she spoke

intelligible Italian and exquisite French. Violetta supposed her to feel

that she commanded the situation. Patient study of this woman

revealed to Violetta the amazing fact that she was dealing with a

born bourgeoise, who, not devoid of petty acuteness, was unaffectedly

enjoying her noble small-talk, and the prospect of a footing in Italian

high society. Violetta smiled at the comedy she had been playing in,

scarcely reproaching herself for not having imagined it. She proceeded

to the point of business without further delay.

Adela Sedley had nothing but a verbal message to deliver. The Countess

Anna of Lenkenstein offered, on her word of honour as a noblewoman,

to make over the quarter of her estate and patrimony to the Countess

d'Isorella, if the latter should succeed in thwarting--something.

Forced to speak plainly, Adela confessed she thought she knew the nature

of that something.

To preclude its being named, Violetta then diverged from the subject.

“We will go round to your friend the signor Antonio-Pericles at Villa

Ricciardi,” she said. “You will see that he treats me familiarly, but he

is not a lover of mine. I suspect your 'something' has something to do

with the Jesuits.”

Adela Sedley replied to the penultimate sentence: “It would not surprise

me, indeed, to hear of any number of adorers.”

“I have the usual retinue, possibly,” said Violetta.

“Dear countess, I could be one of them myself!” Adela burst out with

tentative boldness.

“Then, kiss me.”

And behold, they interchanged that unsweet feminine performance.

Adela's lips were unlocked by it.

“How many would envy me, dear Countess d'Isorella!”

She really conceived that she was driving into Violetta's heart by the

great high-road of feminine vanity. Violetta permitted her to think as

she liked.

“Your countrywomen, madame, do not make large allowances for beauty, I

hear.”

“None at all. But they are so stiff! so frigid! I know one, a Miss Ford,

now in Italy, who would not let me have a male friend, and a character,

in conjunction.”

“You are acquainted with Count Karl Lenkenstein?”

Adela blushingly acknowledged it.

“The whisper goes that I was once admired by him,” said Violetta.

“And by Count Ammiani.”

“By count? by milord? by prince? by king?”

“By all who have good taste.”

“Was it jealousy, then, that made Countess Anna hate me?”

“She could not--or she cannot now.”

“Because I have not taken possession of her brother.”

“I could not--may I say it?--I could not understand his infatuation

until Countess Anna showed me the portrait of Italy's most beautiful

living woman. She told me to look at the last of the Borgia family.”

Violetta laughed out clear music. “And now you see her?”

“She said that it had saved her brother's life. It has a star and a

scratch on the left cheek from a dagger. He wore it on his heart, and an

assassin struck him there: a true romance. Countess Anna said to me that

it had saved one brother, and that it should help to avenge the other.

She has not spoken to me of Jesuits.”

“Nothing at all of the Jesuits?” said Violetta carelessly. “Perhaps she

wishes to use my endeavours to get the Salaseo armistice prolonged, and

tempts me, knowing I am a prodigal. Austria is victorious, you know, but

she wants peace. Is that the case? I do not press you to answer.”

Adela replied hesitatingly: “Are you aware, countess, whether there

is any truth in the report that Countess Lena has a passion for Count

Ammiani?”

“Ah, then,” said Violetta, “Countess Lena's sister would naturally wish

to prevent his contemplated marriage! We may have read the riddle at

last. Are you discreet? If you are, you will let it be known that I had

the honour of becoming intimate with you in Turin--say, at the Court. We

shall meet frequently there during winter, I trust, if you care to make

a comparison of the Italian with the Austrian and the English nobility.”

An eloquent “Oh!” escaped from Adela's bosom. She had certainly not

expected to win her way with this estimable Italian titled lady thus

rapidly. Violetta had managed her so well that she was no longer sure

whether she did know the exact nature of her mission, the words of which

she had faithfully transmitted as having been alone confided to her. It

was with chagrin that she saw Pericles put his fore-finger on a salient

dimple of the countess's cheek when he welcomed them. He puffed and

blew like one working simultaneously at bugle and big drum on hearing

an allusion to Victoria. The mention of the name of that abominable

traitress was interdicted at Villa Ricciardi, he said; she had dragged

him at two armies' tails to find his right senses at last: Pericles

was cured of his passion for her at last. He had been mad, but he was

cured--and so forth, in the old strain. His preparations for a private

operatic performance diverted him from these fierce incriminations,

and he tripped busily from spot to spot, conducting the ladies over the

tumbled lower floors of the spacious villa, and calling their admiration

on the desolation of the scene. Then they went up to the maestro's room.

Pericles became deeply considerate for the master's privacy. “He is my

slave; the man has ruined himself for la Vittoria; but I respect the

impersonation of art,” he said under his breath to the ladies as they

stood at the door; “hark!” The piano was touched, and the voice of

Irma di Karski broke out in a shrill crescendo. Rocco Ricci within gave

tongue to the vehement damnatory dance of Pericles outside. Rocco

struck his piano again encouragingly for a second attempt, but Irma

was sobbing. She was heard to say: “This is the fifteenth time you have

pulled me down in one morning. You hate me; you do; you hate me.” Rocco

ran his fingers across the keys, and again struck the octave for Irma.

Pericles wiped his forehead, when, impenitent and unteachable, she took

the notes in the manner of a cock. He thumped at the door violently and

entered.

“Excellent! horrid! brava! abominable! beautiful! My Irma, you have

reached the skies. You ascend like a firework, and crown yourself at the

top. No more to-day; but descend at your leisure, my dear, and we will

try to mount again by-and-by, and not so fast, if you please. Ha!

your voice is a racehorse. You will learn to ride him with temper and

judgement, and you will go. Not so, my Rocco? Irma, you want repose, my

dear. One thing I guarantee to you--you will please the public. It is a

minor thing that you should please me.”

Countess d'Isorella led Irma away, and had to bear with many fits of

weeping, and to assent to the force of all the charges of vindictive

conspiracy and inveterate malice with which the jealous creature

assailed Vittoria's name. The countess then claimed her ear for

half-a-minute.

“Have you had any news of Countess Anna lately?”

Irma had not; she admitted it despondently. “There is such a vile

conspiracy against me in Italy--and Italy is a poor singer's fame--that

I should be tempted to do anything. And I detest la Vittoria. She has

such a hold on this Antonio-Pericles, I don't see how I can hurt her,

unless I meet her and fly at her throat.”

“You naturally detest her,” said the countess. “Repeat Countess Anna's

proposal to you.”

“It was insulting--she offered me money.”

“That you should persuade me to assist you in preventing la Vittoria's

marriage to Count Ammiani?”

“Dear lady, you know I did not try to persuade you.”

“You knew that you would not succeed, my Irma. But Count Ammiani will

not marry her; so you will have a right to claim some reward. I do not

think that la Vittoria is quite idle. Look out for yourself, my child.

If you take to plotting, remember it is a game of two.”

“If she thwarts me in one single step, I will let loose that madman on

her,” said Irma, trembling.

“You mean the signor Antonio-Pericles?”

“No; I mean that furious man I saw at your villa, dear countess.”

“Ah! Barto Rizzo. A very furious man. He bellowed when he heard her

name, I remember. You must not do it. But, for Count Ammiani's sake, I

desire to see his marriage postponed, at least.”

“Where is she?” Irma inquired.

The countess shrugged. “Even though I knew, I could not prudently tell

you in your present excited state.”

She went to Pericles for a loan of money. Pericles remarked that there

was not much of it in Turin. “But, countess, you whirl the gold-pieces

like dust from your wheels; and a spy, my good soul, a lovely secret

emissary, she will be getting underpaid if she allows herself to want

money. There is your beauty; it is ripe, but it is fresh, and it is

extraordinary. Yes; there is your beauty.” Before she could obtain

a promise of the money, Violetta had to submit to be stripped to her

character, which was hard; but on the other hand, Pericles exacted no

interest on his money, and it was not often that he exacted a return of

it in coin. Under these circumstances, ladies in need of money can find

it in their hearts to pardon mere brutality of phrase. Pericles

promised to send it to the countess on one condition; which condition

he cancelled, saying dejectedly, “I do not care to know where she is. I

will not know.”

“She has the score of Hagar, wherever she is,” said Violetta, “and when

she hears that you have done the scene without her aid, you will have

stuck a dagger in her bosom.”

“Not,” Pericles cried in despair, “not if she should hear Irma's Hagar!

To the desert with Irma. It is the place for a crab-apple. Bravo,

Abraham! you were wise.”

Pericles added that Montini was hourly expected, and that there was to

be a rehearsal in the evening.

When she had driven home, Violetta found Barto Rizzo's accusatory

paper laid on her writing-desk. She gathered the contents in a careless

glance, and walked into the garden alone, to look for Carlo.

He was leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, near the water-gate,

looking into the deep clear lake-water. Violetta placed herself beside

him without a greeting.

“You are watching fish for coolness, my Carlo?”

“Yes,” he said, and did not turn to her face.

“You were very angry when you arrived?”

She waited for his reply.

“Why do you not speak, Carlino?”

“I am watching fish for coolness,” he said.

“Meantime,” said Violetta, “I am scorched.”

He looked up, and led her to an arch of shade, where he sat quite

silent.

“Can anything be more vexing than this?” she was reduced to exclaim.

“Ah!” said he, “you would like the catalogue to be written out for you

in a big bold hand, possibly, with a terrific initials at the end of the

page.”

“Carlo, you have done worse than that. When I saw you first here, what

crimes did you not accuse me of? what names did you not scatter on my

head? and what things did I not, confess to? I bore the unkindness,

for you were beaten, and you wanted a victim. And, my dear friend,

considering that I am after all a woman, my forbearance has subsequently

been still greater.”

“How?” he asked. Her half-pathetic candour melted him.

“You must, have a lively memory for the uses of forgetfulness, Carlo,

When you had scourged me well, you thought it proper to raise me up and

give me comfort. I was wicked for serving the king, and therefore the

country, as a spy; but I was to persevere, and cancel my iniquities by

betraying those whom I served to you. That was your instructive precept.

Have I done it or not? Answer, too have I done it for any payment beyond

your approbation? I persuaded you to hope for Lombardy, and without any

vaunting of my own patriotism. You have seen and spoken to the men

I directed you to visit. If their heads master yours, I shall be

reprobated for it, I know surely; but I am confident as yet that you can

match them. In another month I expect to see the king over the Ticino

once more, and Carlo in Brescia with his comrades. You try to penetrate

my eyes. That's foolish; I can make them glass. Read me by what I say

and what I do. I do not entreat you to trust me; I merely beg that you

will trust your own judgement of me by what I have helped you to do

hitherto. You and I, my dear boy, have had some trifling together. Admit

that another woman would have refused to surrender you as I did when

your unruly Vittoria was at last induced to come to you from Milan. Or,

another woman would have had her revenge on discovering that she had

been a puppet of soft eyes and a lover's quarrel with his mistress.

Instead of which, I let you go. I am opposed to the marriage, it's true;

and you know why.”

Carlo had listened to Violetta, measuring the false and the true in this

recapitulation of her conduct with cool accuracy until she alluded to

their personal relations. Thereat his brows darkened.

“We had I some trifling together,” he said, musingly.

“Is it going to be denied in these sweeter days?” Violetta reddened.

“The phrase is elastic. Suppose my bride were to hear it?”

“It was addressed to your ears, Carlo.”

“It cuts two ways. Will you tell me when it was that I last had the

happiness of saluting you, lip to lip?”

“In Brescia--before I had espoused an imbecile--two nights before my

marriage--near the fountain of the Greek girl with a pitcher.”

Pride and anger nerved the reply. It was uttered in a rapid low

breath. Coming altogether unexpectedly, it created an intense momentary

revulsion of his feelings by conjuring up his boyish love in a scene

more living than the sunlight.

He lifted her hand to his mouth. He was Italian enough, though a lover,

to feel that she deserved more. She had reddened deliciously, and

therewith hung a dewy rosy moisture on her underlids. Raising her eyes,

she looked like a cut orange to a thirsty lip. He kissed her, saying,

“Pardon.”

“Keep it secret, you mean?” she retorted. “Yes, I pardon that wish of

yours. I can pardon much to my beauty.”

She stood up as majestically as she had spoken.

“You know, my Violetta, that I am madly in love.”

“I have learnt it.”

“You know it:--what else would?... If I were not lost in love, could I

see you as I do and let Brescia be the final chapter?”

Violetta sighed. “I should have preferred its being so rather than this

superfluous additional line to announce an end, like a foolish staff on

the edge of a cliff. You thought that you were saluting a leper, or a

saint?”

“Neither. If ever we can talk together again, as we have done,” Carlo

said gloomily, “I will tell you what I think of myself.”

“No, but Richelieu might have behaved.... Ah! perhaps not quite in the

same way,” she corrected her flowing apology for him. “But then, he was

a Frenchman. He could be flighty without losing his head. Dear Italian

Carlo! Yes, in the teeth of Barto Rizzo, and for the sake of the

country, marry her at once. It will be the best thing for you; really

the best. You want to know from me the whereabout of Barto Rizzo. He may

be in the mountain over Stresa, or in Milan. He also has thrown off my

yoke, such as it was! I do assure you, Carlo, I have no command over

him: but, mind, I half doat on the wretch. No man made me desperately

in love with myself before he saw me, when I stopped his raving in the

middle of the road with one look of my face. There was foam on his beard

and round his eyes; the poor wretch took out his handkerchief, and he

sobbed. I don't know how many luckless creatures he had killed on his

way; but when I took him into my carriage--king, emperor, orator on

stilts, minister of police not one has flattered me as he did, by just

gazing at me. Beauty can do as much as music, my Carlo.”

Carlo thanked heaven that Violetta had no passion in her nature. She had

none: merely a leaning toward evil, a light sense of shame, a desire

for money, and in her heart a contempt for the principles she did not

possess, but which, apart from the intervention of other influences,

could occasionally sway her actions. Friendship, or rather the shadowy

recovery of a past attachment that had been more than friendship,

inclined her now and then to serve a master who failed distinctly to

represent her interests; and when she met Carlo after the close of the

war, she had really set to work in hearty kindliness to rescue him from

what she termed “shipwreck with that disastrous Republican crew.” He had

obtained greater ascendency over her than she liked; yet she would have

forgiven it, as well as her consequent slight deviation from direct

allegiance to her masters in various cities, but for Carlo's commanding

personal coolness. She who had tamed a madman by her beauty, was

outraged, and not unnaturally, by the indifference of a former lover.

Later in the day, Laura and Vittoria, with Agostino, reached the villa;

and Adela put her lips to Vittoria's ear, whispering: “Naughty! when

are you to lose your liberty to turn men's heads?” and then she heaved

a sigh with Wilfrid's name. She had formed the acquaintance of Countess

d'Isorella in Turin, she said, and satisfactorily repeated her lesson,

but with a blush. She was little more than a shade to Vittoria, who

wondered what she had to live for. After the early evening dinner, when

sunlight and the colours of the sun were beyond the western mountains,

they pushed out on the lake. A moon was overhead, seeming to drop lower

on them as she filled with light.

Agostino and Vittoria fell upon their theme of discord, as usual--the

King of Sardinia.

“We near the vesper hour, my daughter,” said Agostino; “you would

provoke me to argumentation in heaven itself. I am for peace. I remember

looking down on two cats with arched backs in the solitary arena of the

Verona amphitheatre. We men, my Carlo, will not, in the decay of time,

so conduct ourselves.”

Vittoria looked on Laura and thought of the cannon-sounding hours, whose

echoes rolled over their slaughtered hope. The sun fell, the moon shone,

and the sun would rise again, but Italy lay face to earth. They had seen

her together before the enemy. That recollection was a joy that stood,

though the winds beat at it, and the torrents. She loved her friend's

worn eyelids and softly-shut mouth; the after-glow of battle seemed on

them; the silence of the field of carnage under heaven;--and the patient

turning of Laura's eyes this way and that to speakers upon common

things, covered the despair of her heart as with a soldier's cloak.

Laura met the tender study of Vittoria's look, and smiled.

They neared the Villa Ricciardi, and heard singing. The villa was

lighted profusely, so that it made a little mock-sunset on the lake.

“Irma!” said Vittoria, astonished at the ring of a well-known voice that

shot up in firework fashion, as Pericles had said of it. Incredulous,

she listened till she was sure; and then glanced hurried questions at

all eyes. Violetta laughed, saying, “You have the score of Rocco Ricci's

Hagar.”

The boat drew under the blazing windows, and half guessing, half

hearing, Vittoria understood that Pericles was giving an entertainment

here, and had abjured her. She was not insensible to the slight. This

feeling, joined to her long unsatisfied craving to sing, led her to be

intolerant of Irma's style, and visibly vexed her.

Violetta whispered: “He declares that your voice is cracked: show him!

Burst out with the 'Addio' of Hagar. May she not, Carlo? Don't you

permit the poor soul to sing? She cannot contain herself.”

Carlo, Adela, Agostino, and Violetta prompted her, and, catching a pause

in the villa, she sang the opening notes of Hagar's 'Addio' with her old

glorious fulness of tone and perfect utterance.

The first who called her name was Rocco Ricci, but Pericles was the

first to rush out and hang over the boat. “Witch! traitress!

infernal ghost! heart of ice!” and in English “humbug!” and in French

“coquin!”:--these were a few of the titles he poured on her. Rocco Ricci

and Montini kissed hands to her, begging her to come to them. She was

very willing outwardly, and in her heart most eager; but Carlo bade

the rowers push off. Then it was pitiful to hear the shout of abject

supplication from Pericles. He implored Count Ammiani's pardon,

Vittoria's pardon, for telling her what she was; and as the boat drew

farther away, he offered her sums of money to enter the villa and sing

the score of Hagar. He offered to bear the blame of her bad behaviour to

him, said he would forget it and stamp it out; that he would pay for

the provisioning of a regiment of volunteers for a whole month; that

he would present her marriage trousseau to her--yes, and let her marry.

“Sandra! my dear! my dear!” he cried, and stretched over the parapet

speechless, like a puppet slain.

So strongly did she comprehend the sincerity of his passion for

her voice that she could or would see nothing extravagant in this

demonstration, which excited unrestrained laughter in every key from her

companions in the boat. When the boat was about a hundred yards from the

shore, and in full moonlight, she sang the great “Addio” of Hagar. At

the close of it, she had to feel for her lover's hand blindly. No one

spoke, either at the Villa Ricciardi, or about her. Her voice possessed

the mountain-shadowed lake.

The rowers pulled lustily home through chill air.

Luigi and Beppo were at the villa, both charged with news from Milan.

Beppo claiming the right to speak first, which Luigi granted with a

magnificent sweep of his hand, related that Captain Weisspriess, of

the garrison, had wounded Count Medole in a duel severely. He brought a

letter to Vittoria from Merthyr, in which Merthyr urged her to prevent

Count Ammiani's visiting Milan for any purpose whatever, and said that

he was coming to be present at, her marriage. She was reading this while

Luigi delivered his burden; which was, that in a subsequent duel, the

slaughtering captain had killed little Leone Rufo, the gay and gallant

boy, Carlo's comrade, and her friend.

Luigi laughed scornfully at his rival, and had edged away--out of sight

before he could be asked who had sent him. Beppo ignominiously confessed

that he had not heard of this second duel. At midnight he was on

horseback, bound for Milan, with a challenge to the captain from Carlo,

who had a jealous fear that Luciano at Vercelli might have outstripped

him. Carlo requested the captain to guarantee him an hour's immunity in

the city on a stated day, or to name any spot on the borders of

Piedmont for the meeting. The challenge was sent with Countess Ammiani's

approbation and Laura's. Vittoria submitted.

That done, Carlo gave up his heart to his bride. A fight in prospect was

the hope of wholesome work after his late indecision and double

play. They laughed at themselves, accused hotly, and humbly excused

themselves, praying for mutual pardon.

She had behaved badly in disobeying his mandate from Brescia.

Yes, but had he not been over-imperious?

True; still she should have remembered her promise in the Vicentino.

She did indeed; but how could she quit her wounded friend Merthyr?

Perhaps not: then, why had she sent word to him from Milan that she

would be at Pallanza?

This question knocked at a sealed chamber. She was silent, and Carlo had

to brood over something as well. He gave her hints of his foolish pique,

his wrath and bitter baffled desire for her when, coming to Pallanza, he

came to an empty house. But he could not help her to see, for he did

not himself feel, that he had been spurred by silly passions, pique, and

wrath, to plunge instantly into new political intrigue; and that some of

his worst faults had become mixed up with his devotion to his country.

Had he taken Violetta for an ally in all purity of heart? The kiss he

had laid on the woman's sweet lips had shaken his absolute belief

in that. He tried to set his brain travelling backward, in order to

contemplate accurately the point of his original weakness. It being

almost too severe a task for any young head, Carlo deemed it sufficient

that he should say--and this he felt--that he was unworthy of his

beloved.

Could Vittoria listen to such stuff? She might have kissed him to stop

the flow of it, but kissings were rare between them; so rare, that when

they had put mouth to mouth, a little quivering spire of flame, dim at

the base, stood to mark the spot in their memories. She moved her hand,

as to throw aside such talk. Unfretful in blood, chaste and keen, she at

least knew the foolishness of the common form of lovers' trifling when

there is a burning love to keep under, and Carlo saw that she did, and

adored her for this highest proof of the passion of her love.

“In three days you will be mine, if I do not hear from Milan? within

five, if I do?” he said.

Vittoria gave him the whole beauty of her face a divine minute, and

bowed it assenting. Carlo then led her to his mother, before whom he

embraced her for the comfort of his mother's heart. They decided that

there should be no whisper of the marriage until the couple were one.

Vittoria obtained the countess's permission to write for Merthyr to

attend her at the altar. She had seen Weisspriess fall in combat, and

she had perfect faith in her lover's right hand.

CHAPTER XXXIX

ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN

Captain Weisspriess replied to Carlo Ammiani promptly, naming Camerlata

by Como, as the place where he would meet him.

He stated at the end of some temperate formal lines, that he had given

Count Ammiani the preference over half-a-dozen competitors for the

honour of measuring swords with him; but that his adversary must not

expect him to be always ready to instruct the young gentlemen of the

Lombardo-Venetian province in the arts of fence; and therefore he begged

to observe, that his encounter with Count Ammiani would be the last

occasion upon which he should hold himself bound to accept a challenge

from Count Ammiani's countrymen.

It was quite possible, the captain said, drawing a familiar illustration

from the gaming-table, to break the stoutest Bank in the world by a

perpetual multiplication of your bets, and he was modest enough to

remember that he was but one man against some thousands, to contend with

all of whom would be exhausting.

Consequently the captain desired Count Ammiani to proclaim to his

countrymen that the series of challenges must terminate; and he

requested him to advertize the same in a Milanese, a Turin, and a

Neapolitan journal.

“I am not a butcher,” he concluded. “The task you inflict upon me is

scarcely bearable. Call it by what name you will, it is having ten shots

to one, which was generally considered an equivalent to murder. My sword

is due to you, Count Ammiani; and, as I know you to be an honourable

nobleman, I would rather you were fighting in Venice, though your cause

is hopeless, than standing up to match yourself against me. Let me add,

that I deeply respect the lady who is engaged to be united to you, and

would not willingly cross steel either with her lover or her husband. I

shall be at Camerlata at the time appointed. If I do not find you there,

I shall understand that you have done me the honour to take my humble

advice, and have gone where your courage may at least appear to have

done better service. I shall sheathe my sword and say no more about it.”

All of this, save the concluding paragraph, was written under the eyes

of Countess Anna of Lenkenstein.

He carried it to his quarters, where he appended the as he deemed

it--conciliatory passage: after which he handed it to Beppo, in a square

of the barracks, with a buon'mano that Beppo received bowing, and

tossed to an old decorated regimental dog of many wounds and a veteran's

gravity. For this offence a Styrian grenadier seized him by the

shoulders, lifting him off his feet and swinging him easily, while the

dog arose from his contemplation of the coin and swayed an expectant

tail. The Styrian had dashed Beppo to earth before Weisspriess could

interpose, and the dog had got him by the throat. In the struggle Beppo

tore off the dog's medal for distinguished conduct on the field of

battle. He restored it as soon as he was free, and won unanimous

plaudits from officers and soldiers for his kindly thoughtfulness and

the pretty manner with which he dropped on one knee, and assuaged the

growls, and attached the medal to the old dog's neck. Weisspriess walked

away. Beppo then challenged his Styrian to fight. The case was laid

before a couple of sergeants, who shook their heads on hearing his

condition to be that of a serving-man, the Styrian was ready to waive

considerations of superiority; but the “judge” pronounced their veto. A

soldier in the Imperial Royal service, though he was merely a private in

the ranks, could not accept a challenge from civilians below the rank

of notary, secretary, hotel- or inn-keeper, and suchlike: servants and

tradesmen he must seek to punish in some other way; and they also had

their appeal to his commanding officer. So went the decision of the

military tribunal, until the Styrian, having contrived to make Beppo

understand, by the agency of a single Italian verb, that he wanted a

blow, Beppo spun about and delivered a stinging smack on the Styrian's

cheek; which altered the view of the case, for, under peculiar

circumstances--supposing that he did not choose to cut him down--a

soldier might condescend to challenge his civilian inferiors: “in

our regiment,” said the sergeants, meaning that they had relaxed the

stringency of their laws.

Beppo met his Styrian outside the city walls, and laid him flat. He

declined to fight a second; but it was represented to him, by the aid

of an interpreter, that the officers of the garrison were subjected to

successive challenges, and that the first trial of his skill might have

been nothing finer than luck; and besides, his adversary had a right

to call a champion. “We all do it,” the soldiers assured him. “Now your

blood's up you're ready for a dozen of us;” which was less true of

a constitution that was quicker in expending its heat. He stood out

against a young fellow almost as limber as himself, much taller, and

longer in the reach, by whom he was quickly disabled with cuts on thigh

and head. Seeing this easy victory over him, the soldiers, previously

quite civil, cursed him for having got the better of their fallen

comrade, and went off discussing how he had done the trick, leaving him

to lie there. A peasant carried him to a small suburban inn, where

he remained several days oppressed horribly by a sense that he had

forgotten something. When he recollected what it was, he entrusted the

captain's letter to his landlady;--a good woman, but she chanced to

have a scamp of a husband, who snatched it from her and took it to his

market. Beppo supposed the letter to be on its Way to Pallauza, when it

was in General Schoneck's official desk; and soon after the breath of a

scandalous rumour began to circulate.

Captain Weisspriess had gone down to Camerlata, accompanied by a Colonel

Volpo, of an Austro-Italian regiment, and by Lieutenant Jenna. At

Camerlata a spectacled officer, Major Nagen, joined them. Weisspriess

was the less pleased with his company on hearing that he had come to

witness the meeting, in obedience to an express command of a person

who was interested in it. Jenna was the captain's friend: Volpo was

seconding him for the purpose of getting Count Ammiani to listen to

reason from the mouth of a countryman. There could be no doubt in the

captain's mind that this Major Nagen was Countess Anna's spy as well

as his rival, and he tried to be rid of him; but in addition to

the shortness of sight which was Nagen's plea for pushing his thin

transparent nose into every corner, he enjoyed at will an intermittent

deafness, and could hear anything without knowing of it. Brother

officers said of Major Nagen that he was occasionally equally senseless

in the nose, which had been tweaked without disturbing the repose of his

features. He waited half-an-hour on the ground after the appointed time,

and then hurried to Milan. Weisspriess waited an hour. Satisfied that

Count Ammiani was not coming, he exacted from Volpo and from Jenna their

word of honour as Austrian officers that they would forbear-to cast any

slur on the courage of his adversary, and would be so discreet on the

subject as to imply that the duel was a drawn affair. They pledged

themselves accordingly. “There's Nagen, it's true,” said Weisspriess,

as a man will say and feel that he has done his best to prevent a thing

inevitable.

Milan, and some of the journals of Milan, soon had Carlo Ammiani's name

up for challenging Weisspriess and failing to keep his appointment. It

grew to be discussed as a tremendous event. The captain received fifteen

challenges within two days; among these a second one from Luciano

Romara, whom he was beginning to have a strong desire to encounter. He

repressed it, as quondam drunkards fight off the whisper of their lips

for liquor. “No more blood,” was his constant inward cry. He wanted

peace; but as he also wanted Countess Anna of Lenkenstein and her

estates, it may possibly be remarked of him that what he wanted he did

not want to pay for.

At this period Wilfrid had resumed the Austrian uniform as a common

soldier in the ranks of the Kinsky regiment. General Schoneck had

obtained the privilege for him from the Marshal, General Pierson

refusing to lift a finger on his behalf. Nevertheless the uncle was not

sorry to hear the tale of his nephew's exploits during the campaign, or

of the eccentric intrepidity of the white umbrella; and both to please

him, and to intercede for Wilfrid, the tatter's old comrades recited

his deeds as a part of the treasured familiar history of the army in its

late arduous struggle.

General Pierson was chiefly anxious to know whether Countess Lena would

be willing to give her hand to Wilfrid in the event of his restoration

to his antecedent position in the army. He found her extremely excited

about Carlo Ammiani, her old playmate, and once her dear friend. She

would not speak of Wilfrid at all. To appease the chivalrous little

woman, General Pierson hinted that his nephew, being under the

protection of General Schoneck, might get some intelligence from

that officer. Lena pretended to reject the notion of her coming into

communication with Wilfrid for any earthly purpose. She said to herself,

however, that her object was pre-eminently unselfish; and as the General

pointedly refused to serve her in a matter that concerned an Italian

nobleman, she sent directions to Wilfrid to go before General Schoeneck

the moment he was off duty, and ask his assistance, in her name, to

elucidate the mystery of Count Ammiani's behaviour. The answer was a

transmission of Captain Weisspriess's letter to Carlo. Lena caused

the fact of this letter having missed its way to be circulated in the

journals, and then she carried it triumphantly to her sister, saying:

“There! I knew these reports were abase calumny.”

“Reports, to what effect?” said Anna.

“That Carlo Ammiani had slunk from a combat with your duellist.”

“Oh! I knew that myself,” Anna remarked.

“You were the loudest in proclaiming it.”

“Because I intend to ruin him.”

“Carlo Ammiani? What has he done to you?”

Anna's eyes had fallen on the additional lines of the letter which she

had not dictated. She frowned and exclaimed:

“What is this? Does the man play me false? Read those lines, Lena, and

tell me, does the man mean to fight in earnest who can dare to write

them? He advises Ammiani to go to Venice. It's treason, if it is not

cowardice. And see here--he has the audacity to say that he deeply

respects the lady Ammiani is going to marry. Is Ammiani going to marry

her? I think not.”

Anna dashed the letter to the floor.

“But I will make use of what's within my reach,” she said, picking it

up.

“Carlo Ammiani will marry her, I presume,” said Lena.