Nature was merciful to Montalto. Strong men have lived paralysed for years after a stroke of apoplexy, in full consciousness, yet unable to communicate their thoughts to others; but Montalto was not very strong, and he never awoke from the sleep in which his wife found him. On the fifth day the heart stopped beating, and that was the end. There was no pain, no lucid moment, no harrowing farewell. It was the woman who endured all that a woman can bear, during those five days, not knowing but that he might come back to drag out a long and miserable existence, not daring to pray that he might die, lest she should be praying for her own freedom, yet for his sake not daring to ask that he might live and suffer. It was not until all was over that the last chance of that went out with life itself. Maria had refused to see any one. Three times Giuliana came to the palace and asked if she could be of any use, but the answer was always the same: the Countess thanked her friend, but could not see her. Monsignor Saracinesca came twice, and he was admitted to the sickroom; but Maria would not be present, and Don Ippolito made no attempt to disturb her privacy. It was only at rare intervals that she left her husband’s side for a short time, until he was dead. Each day, with the thought of She had done what she could; so far as in her lay, the expiation was complete; she might have done a little more if life had lingered a little longer; yet, as she closed her eyes, she asked herself whether she had done enough, and afterwards she remembered fancying that a cool breath of peace fanned her burning forehead for a moment before she fell asleep on a little lounge in her dressing-room. She awoke in bed at night, and it seemed strange that there should be a soft light in the room, for she had always slept in the dark. Perhaps the light was only in her imagination, after all, for when she tried to turn her head on the pillow the glimmer seemed to go out and she fell asleep again. Once more she awoke, and it was still there, and a nursing sister with a nun’s wimple and a dark blue veil was leaning over her. She tried to speak, but she was so very weak that she heard no sound, but only a sort of lisping whisper. The nurse bent nearer to her lips, and she tried to speak again. ‘Have I been asleep long?’ She could just whisper that. ‘You have been very dangerously ill for a long time. You must not try to talk.’ The soft dark eyes looked up to the gentle face in wonder, and the lips moved again. ‘Leone?’ Only that word as a question. ‘Quite, quite well, in Frascati with his tutor. We exchange news every day.’ Sleep again, quick and soft, and after that waking and sleep by day and night, with gradual return to thought and life, till she knew what had happened to her, and was at last well enough to see Leone for a few minutes. He looked strangely tall in his new black clothes, and when she had kissed him and had held his face before her a moment between her beautiful thin hands, he gazed at her a long time very thoughtfully. ‘The doctors said you were going to die,’ he observed at last, ‘but the Captain said you wouldn’t. I believed the Captain.’ ‘What captain, dear?’ ‘Why, Captain Castiglione, of course. He’s my friend now.’ A faint warmth rose in Maria’s wasted cheeks. ‘I thought you had been in Frascati,’ she said. ‘Yes. But the Captain has been out to see me three times a week. Didn’t they tell you? Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He said he thought you wouldn’t mind, because it was rather lonely for me out there with a man like my tutor, who can’t ride and had a broken arm. He’s given me a dog. We’re great friends. Papa was going to give me a dog, you know.’ The last sentence was spoken in a lower tone, very seriously and with a sort of awe. ‘Yes, dear,’ Maria answered gravely, for she did not know what to say. The handsome boy sat down and held her white hands affectionately in his brown ones, and his bright blue eyes gazed quietly at her. ‘I miss papa dreadfully,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’ ‘His death has made a very great change in my life,’ she answered. ‘I couldn’t believe it at first,’ said Leone. ‘When I did, I just couldn’t stand it. I went and shut myself up in my room all day and thought about him.’ ‘Perhaps that was the best thing you could have done, dear.’ ‘What did you do after he was dead, mother? I want to know.’ ‘I fell ill at once,’ Maria answered. ‘I thought I was only falling asleep, and I knew nothing for more than a fortnight.’ ‘Yes. But before that, did you cry much?’ ‘No, dear. I was quite worn out, for I had scarcely left him since he had fallen ill. When he did not breathe any more, I kissed him and prayed, and then came to my own room. After that I remember nothing.’ Leone looked at her thoughtfully and rather sadly. ‘I wanted to know,’ he said after a while. Maria’s maid came to the door and said the tutor was waiting to take his Excellency for his afternoon walk. The nurse had sent her, thinking that Maria would be tired. ‘Why do they call me “Excellency” every minute ‘Though you are only a boy, they look upon you as the master now, because there is no one else.’ ‘Am I really the master of Montalto, as papa said I should be?’ ‘I suppose so, dear.’ Maria spoke a little wearily. ‘You must go out for your walk now, and to-morrow you shall come again and stay longer.’ ‘Yes, much longer! Do you think it would cheer you up to see my dog to-morrow? You must be dreadfully lonely all day. I’ll lend him to you, if you like.’ Maria smiled. ‘Bring him with you to-morrow, if he is a cheerful little dog,’ she answered, and she nearly laughed for the first time in many weeks. Leone looked at her with satisfaction. ‘You’re going to get well very soon,’ he said in a tone of patronising conviction. ‘Good-bye.’ She watched him as he crossed the room to the door. He was thinner and taller, but he looked square and tough. He already had the figure of a little man, and at the back of his neck, above the broad turned-down collar, the short and thick brown hair seemed trying to curl more vigorously than ever. Maria saw it and shut her eyes. She was still very weak, for it sometimes takes a long time to recover from brain fever, but she gained daily. Giuliana Parenzo came and spent long hours in the room, for she was a healthy, soothing woman, who made no noise and told Maria just how she wanted to know, asking no questions about how she felt. At last they began to drive out together, near the end of February, when the almond-trees were in blossom and there was a breath of spring in the air. One day they were in the Campagna and almost in sight of Acqua Santa, on the New Appian, and neither had spoken for some time. Giuliana broke the silence. ‘I have a great admiration for you, Maria,’ she said. ‘I mean, quite apart from our friendship. I did you a great injustice in my thoughts at the beginning of the winter, and I want to tell you how sorry I am. You have been very brave and good all through this.’ ‘Thank you, Giuliana,’ Maria touched her friend’s hand affectionately. ‘I’m not the only one of your friends who thinks so, either. Shall I repeat something that Ippolito Saracinesca told me the other day?’ ‘If it is kind, tell me. I am not quite strong yet.’ ‘It may make a difference to you to know it. It ought to please you. Do you remember that Ippolito and I dined with you the night before your husband fell ill?’ ‘Indeed I do!’ ‘And they argued, as usual, but afterwards they talked in a low voice.’ ‘I remember that too.’ ‘Poor Diego was talking about you. He said that whatever trouble there had ever been between you was forgotten and forgiven. He said that you had made him absolutely and unspeakably happy ever since he had come back to you, and that he wished he could have made your life such a heaven as you had made his; that his unfortunate temper must have often irritated you and hurt you, but that he believed you had always forgiven him.’ Maria’s eyes filled with tears, as they sometimes did. ‘Thank you for telling me that,’ she said. ‘It does make a difference.’ ‘Ippolito never saw him conscious again. Those must have been almost the last words he ever spoke.’ ‘Almost,’ echoed Maria, remembering that night. ‘But there is something else,’ Giuliana said. ‘Shall I tell you? There is just one thing more.’ ‘Does Don Ippolito wish me to know it? He was Diego’s best friend.’ ‘Yes. He thinks it will be easier—I mean, it will seem more natural—if it comes through me. Ippolito will never feel that he knows you very well. You understand, don’t you, dear?’ ‘Certainly. Go on, please.’ Maria prepared herself for a shock. ‘Last Christmas Eve Diego went to see him, and placed in his hands a letter, to be given to you in case of his death. We have not thought you were well enough to have it until now. Your husband told Ippolito what is in the letter in case it were ever lost, and Ippolito thought best to tell me, so that you may know beforehand what it is about. You are strong enough now.’ ‘Yes,’ Maria said, but she turned a shade whiter. ‘It ought to relieve you rather than pain you,’ answered Giuliana. ‘The letter is meant to give you his full consent to marry again, in case he died. But he added——’ Telemaco suddenly checked his horses to a walk at the steep hill, and it was impossible for Giuliana to go on talking in the low phaeton without being heard, unless she spoke in a foreign language. Maria grew whiter. ‘A little faster,’ said Giuliana to the coachman. ‘You can stop at the top of the hill.’ The New Appian Road is paved throughout, and the horses’ hoofs began to clatter on the stones again. Maria waited to hear the rest. ‘He added that if you married again he thought it would be your duty to marry Baldassare—your duty before God and your duty to society. Yes, dear, what did you say?’ Maria had uttered a little exclamation and had turned her face quite away. For the first time since her friend had known her the tears overflowed, and Giuliana, leaning forwards a little, could just see two glistening drops on her pale cheek. When Maria turned again she shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It is too much, it is too generous. I must never marry him. I must never think of him again. I promised Diego that I would tear the memory from my heart, and I must. God help me, for I must.’ Giuliana opened her little bag, a marvel of workmanship fresh from Paris. ‘Here is the letter, Maria,’ she said. ‘You must have it now, for it freely gives you back the promise you made. Read it when you are alone.’ Maria took the letter in silence; and under her black fur-lined cloak, heavy with crape, she loosened her dress and laid the sealed envelope upon her bare neck, a little to the left, where she had laid the letter the monk had given her from Castiglione, some two months ago, that seemed like ages of ages now. Just then the horses stopped at the top of the hill, where a lane turns to the right, leading to Acqua Santa and the golf links. A large closed carriage with black horses and plain black liveries was coming rapidly from the opposite direction. As it passed the phaeton Giuliana and Maria bowed far forwards, for there was a cardinal inside whom they both knew, an old man and a good one. In answer to their salutation he smiled, and Maria saw the aged hand, white and ungloved, lifted at the open window to give a blessing that might have seemed prophetic just then. Months have passed since that afternoon and many things have happened. Casalmaggiore never got the Andalusian mare, for only Leone rides her, and he would not part with her for anything. Monsieur de Maurienne never came back from Paris, but managed to be sent to Vienna instead, and Donna Teresa is still an unprotected widow. The Countess of Montalto is herself again, and still in half-mourning for her husband. During these hot August days she is living quietly at He comes in at tea-time, a straight, square boy in well-worn riding clothes, his fox-terrier at his heels. ‘I wish the Captain were here, mama,’ he says suddenly. ‘It would be such fun to ride together. I don’t see why you shouldn’t ask him for a few days.’ ‘Not now, little man,’ says Maria, pouring out the boy’s tea. ‘But perhaps he may come another year and stay a long time.’ She rises and sets the cup on a little table beside him with a good slice of bread and butter, and she stands over him as if to make him eat and drink. But when he bends his handsome head she stoops and kisses the back of his sturdy neck where the short brown hair is always doing its very best to curl. Note.—The ‘Piedmont Lancers,’ to which Castiglione belonged, are purely imaginary, and are by no means meant for the ‘Piedmont Regiment,’ which would be more rightly classed with the Dragoons. Transcribers Notes: Period spelling and word usage (e.g. forwards instead of forward) were retained but obvious punctuation errors, letters added, omitted, or reversed by the printer were corrected. Consistent with the usage of the time, several words are hyphenated in one instance and not in another. These differences were retained. The original Table of Contents, which included two simple entries for Part I and Part II, has been enhanced to include the Chapters. This facilitates the navigation of eBooks. |