Pietro Ghisleri Part 28

She slipped a little gold bracelet formed of simple links without ornament or distinctive mark from her wrist, and put it into the Sister's hand.

"If you think he is dying, give him this, and say I came and kissed him.

If he is in no danger, sell it, and give the money to some poor person.

Can I trust you, my sister?"

"Yes, madame," answered the French nun quietly as she dropped the trinket into her capacious pocket.

With one glance more at Ghisleri's face, the Contessa left the room. A quarter of an hour later she was at home again. The servants supposed that she had gone to an early ma.s.s, as she sometimes did, possibly to pray for the soul of the Signor Ghisleri. The man who had gone for news of him had not failed to inform the whole household of Pietro's dangerous state, and as Pietro was a constant visitor, and was generous with his five-franc notes, considerable anxiety was felt in the lower regions for his welfare, and numerous prayers were offered for his recovery.

Maddalena sent to make inquiries several times in the course of the day, and towards evening was informed that there was more hope, but that if he got well at all it would be by a long convalescence. She herself saw no one, and no one ever knew what she suffered in those endless hours of solitude.

Laura Arden heard of the duel through her mother, who was very angry about it, as has been seen. Laura herself was greatly shocked, for at first almost every one thought that Ghisleri must die of his wound.

Having been brought up in Rome, in the midst of Roman ideas, she had not the English aversion to duelling, nor, being an Anglican, had she a Catholic's horror of sudden death. She did not even yet really like Ghisleri. But she was horror-struck, though she could hardly have told why, at the thought that the strong man who had been with her when her husband died, and whom she had talked with so often since, should be taken away without warning, in the midst of his youth and strength, for a word said in her defence. Of course the Princess told her all the details of the story as she had heard them, laying particular stress upon the fact that the duel had been fought for Laura. The seconds in the affair had gravely alleged a dispute about the painter Zichy as the true cause of the quarrel, but the world had found time to make up its mind on the previous evening, and was not to be deceived by such absurd tales.

"It is not my fault, mother, if they fought about me," said Laura. "But I am dreadfully distressed. I wish I could do anything."

"The best thing is to do nothing," answered the Princess, "for nothing can do any good. The harm is done, whether it has been in any way your fault or not. To think it should all have begun in that insane superst.i.tion about the evil eye!"

"I never even knew that I was suspected of being a jettatrice. People must be mad to believe in such things. You are right, of course. What could any of us do except make inquiries? Poor man! I hope he will get over it."

"G.o.d grant he may live to be a better man," said the Princess, devoutly.

She had never had a very high opinion of Ghisleri's moral worth, and late events had confirmed her in the estimate she had made. "One thing I must say, my dear," she continued. "If he recovers, as I pray he may, you must see less of him than hitherto. You cannot let people talk about you as they will talk, especially after this dreadful affair."

"I will be very careful," Laura answered. "Not that there is any danger.

The poor man will be ill for weeks, at the best, and the summer will be almost here before he is out of the house. Then I shall be going away, for I do not mean to keep Herbert here during the heat."

The Princess was quite used to hearing Laura speak of the little child in that way, and she had never once referred to her husband by name since his death. She meant that the one Herbert should take the place of the other, once and for always, to be cared for and loved, and thought of at every hour of the day. She had silently planned out her life during the weeks of her recovery, and she believed that nothing could prevent her from living it as she intended. Everything should be for little Herbert, from first to last. She looked at the baby face, in which she saw so plainly the father's likeness where others could see only a pair of big brown eyes, plump cheeks, and a mouth like a flower, and she promised herself that all the happiness she would have made for the one who had been taken should be the lot of the one given to her almost on the same day. Her future seemed anything but dark to her, though its greater light had gone out. The anguish, the agonising anxiety, the first moment's joy, and at last the full pride of motherhood, had come between her and the past, deadening the terrible shock at first, and making the memory of it less keen and poignant afterwards, while not in any way dimming the bright recollection of the love that had united her to her husband. She could take pleasure now in looking forward to her boy's coming years, to the time when he should be at first a companion, then a friend, and then a protector of whom she would be proud when he stood among other men. She could think of his schooldays, and she could already feel the pain of parting from him and the joy of meeting him again, taller and stronger and braver at every return. And far away in the hazy distance before her she could see a shadowy but lovely figure, yet unknown to-day--Herbert's wife that was to be, a perfect woman, and worthy of him in all ways. It might be also that somewhere there were great deeds for Herbert to do, fame for him to achieve, glory for him to win. All this was possible, but she thought little of it. Her ambition was to know him some day to be all that his father had been in heart, and to see him all that his father should have been in outward form and stature. More than that she neither hoped nor asked for, and perhaps it was enough. And so she dreamed on, while no one thought she was dreaming at all, for she was always active and busy with something that concerned the child, and her attention never wandered when it was needed.

Her mother watched her and was glad of it all. To her, it seemed very merciful that Arden should have died when he did, fond as she herself had been of him. She had not believed that Laura could be permanently happy with such a sufferer, and she had never desired the marriage, though she had done nothing to oppose it when she saw how deeply her daughter loved the man she had chosen. She was very much relieved when she saw how Laura behaved in her sorrow, and realised that there was no morbid tendency in her to dwell over-long on her grief. One thing, which has already been mentioned, alone showed that Laura felt very deeply,--she never spoke of Arden, even to her mother. On this point there seemed to be a tacit understanding between her and Donald. The faithful old servant seemed to know instinctively what she wished done.

When all was over, and while Laura was still far too ill to be consulted, he had taken all Arden's clothes and other little effects, even to his brushes and other dressing things, and had packed everything in his dead master's own boxes as though for a long journey. The boxes themselves he locked up in a small spare room, and laid the key in the drawer of Laura's writing-table with a label on which were written the words, "His lords.h.i.+p's effects." Laura found it the first time she came to the drawing-room, and was grateful to the old Scotchman for what he had done. But she could not bring herself to speak of it, even to Donald, though he knew that she was pleased by the look she gave him.

Of course, her manner was greatly changed from what it had been. She never laughed now, and rarely ever smiled, except when she held the child in her arms. But there was nothing morbid nor brooding in her gravity. She had accepted her lot and was determined to make the best of it according to her light. In time she would grow more cheerful, and by and by she would be her old self again--more womanly, perhaps, and certainly more mature, but not materially altered in character or disposition. The short months which had sufficed for what had hitherto been the chief acts of her life had not been filled with violent or conflicting emotions, and it is emotion more than anything else which changes the natures of men and women for better or for worse. The love that had been born of mingled pity and sympathy of thought had risen quickly in the peaceful, remote places of her heart, and had flowed smoothly through the sweet garden of her maidenly soul, unruffled and undeviating, until it had suddenly disappeared into the abyss of eternity. It had left no wreck and no ruin behind, no devastation and no poisonous, stagnant pools, as some loves do. The soil over which it had pa.s.sed had been refreshed and made fertile by it, and would bear flowers and fruit hereafter as fragrant and as sweet as it could ever have borne; and at the last, in that one great moment of pain when she had stood at the brink and seen all she loved plunge out of sight for ever in the darkness, she had heard in her ear the tender cry of a new young life calling to her to turn back and tend it, and love it, and show it the paths that lead to such happiness as the world holds for the pure in heart.

She was calm, therefore, and not, in the ordinary sense, broken by her sorrow,--a fact which the world, in its omniscience, very soon discovered. It did not fail to say that she was well rid of her husband, and that she knew it, and was glad to be free, though she managed with considerable effort to keep up a sufficient outward semblance of mourning to satisfy the customs and fas.h.i.+ons of polite society--just that much, and not a jot more.

But Adele Savelli said repeatedly that all this was not true, and that only a positively angelic nature like Laura's could bear such an awful bereavement so calmly. It was a strange thing, Adele added, that very good people should always seem so much better able to resign themselves to the decrees of Providence than their less perfect neighbours. Of course it could not be that they were colder and felt less than others, and consequently could not suffer so much. Besides, Laura must have loved Arden sincerely to marry him at all, since it appeared to be certain that the rich uncle who was to have left him so much money only existed in the imagination of the gossips, and had evidently been invented by them merely in order to make out that Laura had a secret reason for marrying that uncle's favourite nephew. But then, people would talk, of course, and all that the relations of the family could do was to deny such calumnious reports consistently and at every turn.

Adele was looking very ill when the season came to an end. She had grown thin, and her eyes had a restless, hunted look in them which had never been there before. Her husband noticed that she was very much overcome when she heard the first report to the effect that Ghisleri was killed.

She seemed particularly horrified at the statement that the original cause of the duel had been the reputation for possessing the evil eye which Laura Arden had so suddenly acquired, and which, as she herself had been the very first to say, was so utterly unfounded. It was evidently a very great relief to her to hear, later in the day, that Pietro was not yet dead, and might even have a chance of recovery.

No one could tell what Gianforte Campodonico thought of the matter. He shut himself up obstinately and awaited events. It is not probable that he felt any remorse for what he had done, or that he would have felt any if he had left Ghisleri dead on the field, instead of with a bare chance of life. He had taken the vengeance he had longed for and he was glad of it, but the impression he had of the man was not the same which he had been accustomed to for so many years. He, who generally reflected little, asked himself whether he could have found the courage to bear what Ghisleri had borne for the sake of the promise they had made together, and which he had been the first to break. He was a brave man, too, in his way, and it would not have been safe to predict that he would fail at any given point if put to the test. But he was conscious that, in the present case, Ghisleri had played the n.o.bler part, and he was manly enough to acknowledge the fact to himself, and to respect his adversary as he had not done before. If he stayed at home and refused to be seen in the world or even at his club immediately after the duel, it was because he would not be thought willing to glory in his victory.

But, before many days were gone by, it became apparent, so far as the world could judge, that Pietro Ghisleri would not die of the dangerous wound he had received. It would have killed most men, the surgeon said, but Ghisleri was not like other people. He, the doctor, had never seen a stronger const.i.tution, nor one so perfectly untainted by any hereditary evil or weakness. Such blood was rare now, especially in the old families, and such strength would have been rare in any age. He had no longer any hesitation in saying that the patient had a very fair prospect of recovery, and might possibly be as healthy as ever before the end of the summer.

The Sister of Charity went about with Maddalena's bracelet in her pocket, feeling very uncomfortable about it, since she had been quite sure from the first that there was something very sinful in the whole affair. But she was quite ready to fulfil her promise if Ghisleri showed signs of departing this life, which he did not, however, either when he first regained consciousness or later. So she, on her part, said nothing, and waited for the day when she might deliver up the trinket to the Mother Superior, to be sold for the poor, as Maddalena had directed.

In that, at least, there could be no harm, and she was very thankful that she was not called upon to deliver the message to Ghisleri himself, for that, she felt sure, would have been sinful, or something very like it.

The surgeon was surprised by something else in the case. As a general rule, when a man fights a desperate duel in the very middle of the season, and especially such a man as he knew Ghisleri to be, and is severely hurt, he finds himself cut off from society in the midst of some chain of events in which the whole present interest of his life is engaged. He is consequently disturbed in mind, impatient of confinement, and feverishly anxious to get back to the world,--a state of temper by no means conducive to convalescence. Ghisleri, on the contrary, seemed to have forgotten to care for anything. No preoccupation appeared to possess him; no desire to be back again in the throng made him restless.

He was perfectly calm and peaceful, always patient, and always resigned to whatever treatment seemed necessary. The Sister wondered much that a man of such marvellous gentleness and resignation could have found it in him to commit mortal sin in fighting a duel, and, perhaps, far down in her woman's heart, she did not wonder at all at what Maddalena had done on that first morning. The surgeon said that Ghisleri's sweet temper had much to do with his rapid recovery.

It need not be supposed from this that his character had undergone any radical change, nor that he was turning, all at once, into the saint he was never intended to be. It was very simple. The events of the night preceding the duel had brought his life to a crisis which, once past, had left little behind it to disturb him. First in his mind was the consciousness that his love for Maddalena dell' Armi was gone for ever, and that she herself expected no return of it. That alone was enough to change his whole existence in the present, and in the immediate future.

Then, too, he felt that he had at least settled old scores with Campodonico and had in a measure expiated one, at least, of his past misdeeds, almost at the cost of his life. Morally speaking, too, he had kept his oath to Bianca Corleone, for under the utmost provocation he had refused to fight in the old quarrel, and even when driven to bay and forced upon new ground by Campodonico's implacable hatred, he had stood up to be killed without so much as firing at Bianca's brother. There was a deep and real satisfaction in that, and he was perhaps too ill as yet to torture himself by stigmatising it as a bit of vanity. The world might think what it pleased. Maddalena might misjudge his motives, and Gianforte might triumph in his victory--it all made no difference to him. He was conscious that to the best of his ability he had acted according to the dictates of true honour, as he understood it; and at night he closed his eyes and fell peacefully asleep, and in the morning he opened them quietly again upon the little world of his invalid's surroundings.

He was not happy, however. What he felt, and what perhaps saved his life, was a momentary absence of responsibility, an absolute certainty that nothing more could be required of him, because, in the events in which he had played a part, that part had been acted out to the very end. He even went so far as to believe that, if he had died, it would not have made any difference to any one, except that his death might possibly have been an added satisfaction to Campodonico. He would have left no sorrowing heart behind to mourn him, nor any gap in any circle which another man could not fill up. Herbert Arden, the only friend who would have really regretted him, was already dead, and there was no one else who stood to him in any relation of acquaintance at all so close as to be called friends.h.i.+p. All this contributed materially to his peace of mind, though in one respect he was mistaken. There was one person who loved him still, for himself, though she knew well enough that his love for her was dead.

And it was of her, though he was mistaken about her, that he thought the most during the long hours when he lay there quietly watching the sunbeams stealing across the room when it was fine, or listening to the raindrops pattering against the windows when the weather was stormy. In her was centred the great present regret of his life, and for her sake he felt the most sincere remorse. He asked himself, as she had asked him, what was to become of her, now that he had left her. The fact that she had been really the one to speak the word and cause the first break did not change the truth in the least. It had been his fault from the first to the last. He had not broken her heart, perhaps, because hearts are not now-a-days easily broken, if, indeed, they ever really were; but he had ruined her existence wantonly, uselessly, on the plea of a love neither pure nor lasting, and he fully realised what he had done. What chance had she ever had against him--she, young, inexperienced, trusting, wretchedly unhappy with a husband who had despised and trodden out the simple, girlish love she had offered--what chance had she against Pietro Ghisleri, the hardened, cool-headed man of the world, whose only weakness was that he sometimes believed himself sincere, as he had with her? He was not happy as he thought of it all. There had been little manliness in what he had done, and not much of the honour which he called his last shred of morality. And yet, in the world in which he had his being, few men would blame him, and none, perhaps, venture to condemn him. But that consideration did not cross his mind.

He was willing to bear both condemnation and blame, and he heaped both upon himself in a plentiful measure.

Nevertheless, he was conscious of being surprised at the calmness of his own repentance, as he called it rather contemptuously, and he wished himself, as usual, quite different from what he was. And yet he had not forgotten the semi-theatrical resolution to change his life, which he had made on the night before the duel, still less had he any intention of breaking it. He had always laughed at men and women who made sudden and important resolutions under the influence of emotion, and, on the whole, he had never seen any reason for looking upon such gratuitous promises as valid, unless there had been witnesses to them, and human vanity afterwards came into play. But now, in his own case, he meant to try the experiment. It made no difference whether he were vain about it or not, if he succeeded, nor, if he failed, whether he scorned his own weakness a little more than before. No one would ever know, and since by Laura Arden's rigid standard of right and wrong the end to be gained belonged distinctly to the right, he would be in a measure following her advice in regard to life in general. Deeper down in his nature, too, there lay another thought which he would not now evoke, lest he should himself condemn it as sentimental. That secret promise had been honestly intended, and had been addressed to the memory of one who, though long dead, still had a stronger influence over him than any one now living.

He hardly dared to acknowledge the truth of this and the real meaning of what he had done, lest, if he failed hereafter, he should have to accuse himself of faithlessness towards the one woman to whom he had been really true, and whom, if she had lived, he would have loved till the end, in spite of obstacles, in spite of mankind, in spite, he added defiantly, of Heaven itself. All this he tried to keep out of sight, while firmly resolving, in his own cynical way, to try the experiment of goodness for once, and to do no more harm in the world if he could help it.

He thought of Laura Arden, too, in his long convalescence, and her image was always pleasant to his inner vision, as the impression she had produced on him was soothing to recall. There were times when her holy eyes seemed to gaze at him out of the darker corners of the room, and he tried often to bring back her whole presence. The pleasure such useless feats of imagination gave him was artistic if it was anything, because he admired her beauty and had always delighted in it. He tried to fancy what she was doing, on certain days when he thought more of her than usual, and to follow her life a little, always trying in a vague way to fathom the secret of the character that was so wonderful in his estimation. And always, when he had been thinking of her, he came back to the contemplation of his own immediate interests with a renewed calm and with a peaceful sense that there might yet be better days in store for him--possibly days in which he should himself be better than he had been heretofore.

How the world would have jeered, could it have suspected that Pietro Ghisleri was thinking almost seriously of such a very commonplace subject as moral goodness, as he lay on his back, day after day, in the quiet of his room. How gladly would Adele Savelli have changed places with the man who, as she thought, for the sake of a bit of gossip she had invented out of spite, had nearly lost his life!

CHAPTER XV.

When Ghisleri was at last able to go out of the house, his first visit was to Maddalena dell' Armi. He had written a line to say that he was coming, and she expected him. The meeting was a strange one, for both felt at first the constraint of their mutual position. Ghisleri looked at her face, which had been so hard when he had last seen it, and he saw that it had softened. There were no signs of suffering, however, and her expression was almost as placid as his own. He raised her hand to his lips and sat down opposite to her. Then the light fell on his face and she saw how changed he was. She remembered how he had looked when she had seen him after he was wounded, and she saw that he was almost as pale now as then, and that he was thin almost to emaciation.

"Are you really growing strong again?" she asked in a tone of anxiety.

"Yes, indeed," he answered with a smile. "I feel as though I were quite well--a little gaunt and weak, perhaps, but that will soon pa.s.s. And you--how have you spent your time in all these weeks since I last saw you?"

"Very much as usual," replied Maddalena, and suddenly a weary look came into her eyes. "If you care to know--as long as you were really in danger I did not go out. Then I went everywhere again, and tried to amuse myself."

"Did you succeed?" asked Ghisleri, trying hard to speak cheerfully.

There had been something hopeless in Maddalena's tone which shocked him and pained him.

"More or less. Why do you ask me that?"

"Because I am interested."

"Do you care for me in the least--in any way?" she asked abruptly.

"You know that I do--"

"How should I know it?"

Ghisleri did not reply at once, for the question was not easily answered. Maddalena waited in silence until he should speak.

"Perhaps you are right," he said at last. "You have no means of knowing it, and I have no means of proving it. Dearest lady, since we have both changed so much, do you not think you could believe a little in my friends.h.i.+p?"

"We ought to be friends--you should be my best friend."

"I mean to be, if you will let me."