CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO
Vittoria knew better than Laura that the task was easy; she had but tooverride her aversion to the show of trifling with a dead passion; andwhen she thought of Angelo lying helpless in the swarm of enemies, andthat Wilfrid could consent to use his tragic advantage to force her tosilly love-play, his selfishness wrought its reflection, so that shebecame sufficiently unjust to forget her marvellous personal influenceover him. Even her tenacious sentiment concerning his white uniform wasclouded. She very soon ceased to be shamefaced in her own fancy. At dawnshe stood at her window looking across the valley of Meran, and felt thewhole scene in a song of her heart, with the faintest recollection ofher having passed through a tempest overnight. The warm Southern glowof the enfoliaged valley recalled her living Italy, and Italy her voice.She grew wakefully glad: it was her nature, not her mind, that hadtwisted in the convulsions of last night's horror of shame. The chirpof healthy blood in full-flowing veins dispersed it; and as a tropicalatmosphere is cleared by the hurricane, she lost her depression and wentdown among her enemies possessed by an inner delight, that was again ofher nature, not of her mind. She took her gladness for a happy sign thatshe had power to rise buoyant above circumstances; and though aware thatshe was getting to see things in harsh outlines, she was unconscious ofher haggard imagination.
The Lenkensteins had projected to escape the blandishments of Vienna byresiding during the winter in Venice, where Wilfrid and his sister wereto be the guests of the countess:--a pleasant prospect that was dashedout by an official visit from Colonel Zofel of the Meran garrison,through whom it was known that Lieutenant Pierson, while enjoying hisfull liberty to investigate the charms of the neighbourhood, might notextend his excursions beyond a pedestrian day's limit;--he was, in fact,under surveillance. The colonel formally exacted his word of honour thathe would not attempt to pass the bounds, and explained to the duchessthat the injunction was favourable to the lieutenant, as implyingthat he must be ready at any moment to receive the order to join hisregiment. Wilfrid bowed with a proper soldierly submission. Respectingthe criminal whom his men were pursuing, Colonel Zofel said that he wassparing no efforts to come on his traces; he supposed, from what hehad heard in the Ultenthal, that Guidascarpi was on his back somewherewithin a short range of Meran. Vittoria strained her ears to thecolonel's German; she fancied his communication to be that he suspectedAngelo's presence in Meran.
The official part of his visit being terminated, the colonel addressedsome questions to the duchess concerning the night of the famousFifteenth at La Scala. He was an amateur, and spoke with enthusiasm ofthe reports of the new prima donna. The duchess perceived that he wasasking for an introduction to the heroine of the night, and graciouslysaid that perhaps that very prima donna would make amends, to him forhis absence on the occasion. Vittoria checked a movement of revolt inher frame. She cast an involuntary look at Wilfrid. "Now it begins,"she thought, and went to the piano: she had previously refused tosing. Wilfrid had to bend his head over his betrothed and listen to herwhisperings. He did so, carelessly swaying his hand to the measure ofthe aria, with an increasing bitter comparison of the two voices.Lena persisted in talking; she was indignant at his abandonment ofthe journey to Venice; she reproached him as feeble, inconsiderate,indifferent. Then for an instant she would pause to hear the voice, andrenew her assault. "We ought to be thankful that she is not singinga song of death and destruction to us! The archduchess is coming toVenice. If you are presented to her and please her, and get the writsof naturalization prepared, you will be one of us completely, and yourfortune is made. If you stay here--why should you stay? It is nothingbut your uncle's caprice. I am too angry to care for music. If you stay,you will earn my contempt. I will not be buried another week in such aplace. I am tired of weeping. We all go to Venice: Captain Weisspriessfollows us. We are to have endless Balls, an opera, a Court there--withwhom am I to dance, pray, when I am out of mourning? Am I to sit andgovern my feet under a chair, and gaze like an imbecile nun? It is toopreposterous. I am betrothed to you; I wish, I wish to behave like abetrothed. The archduchess herself will laugh to see me chained to achair. I shall have to reply a thousand times to 'Where is he?' What canI answer? 'Wouldn't come,' will be the only true reply."
During this tirade, Vittoria was singing one of her old songs, wellknown to Wilfrid, which brought the vision of a foaming weir, andmoonlight between the branches of a great cedar-tree, and the lost loveof his heart sitting by his side in the noising stillness. He was surethat she could be singing it for no one but for him. The leap taken byhis spirit from this time to that, was shorter than from the past backto the present.
"You do not applaud," said Lena, when the song had ceased.
He murmured: "I never do, in drawing-rooms."
"A cantatrice expects it everywhere; these creatures live on it."
"I'll tell her, if you like, what we thought of it, when I take her downto my sister, presently."
"Are you not to take me down?"
"The etiquette is to hand her up to you."
"No, no!" Lena insisted, in abhorrence of etiquette; but Wilfrid saidpointedly that his sister's feelings must be spared. "Her husband is ananimal: he is a millionaire city-of-London merchant; conceive him!He has drunk himself gouty on Port wine, and here he is for thegrape-cure."
"Ah! in that England of yours, women marry for wealth," said Lena.
"Yes, in your Austria they have a better motive" he interpreted hersentiment.
"Say, in our Austria."
"In our Austria, certainly."
"And with our holy religion?"
"It is not yet mine."
"It will be?" She put the question eagerly.
Wilfrid hesitated, and by his adept hesitation succeeded in throwing heroff the jealous scent.
"Say that it will be, my Wilfrid!"
"You must give me time"
"This subject always makes you cold."
"My own Lena!"
"Can I be, if we are doomed to be parted when we die?"
There is small space for compunction in a man's heart when he is inWilfrid's state, burning with the revival of what seemed to him asuperhuman attachment. He had no design to break his acknowledgedbondage to Countess Lena, and answered her tender speech almost astenderly.
It never occurred to him, as he was walking down to Meran with Vittoria,that she could suppose him to be bartering to help rescue the life of awretched man in return for soft confidential looks of entreaty; nor didhe reflect, that when cast on him, they might mean no more than thewish to move him for a charitable purpose. The completeness of herfascination was shown by his reading her entirely by his own emotions,so that a lowly-uttered word, or a wavering unwilling glance, made himthink that she was subdued by the charm of the old days.
"Is it here?" she said, stopping under the first Italian name she saw inthe arcade of shops.
"How on earth have you guessed it?" he asked, astonished.
She told him to wait at the end of the arcade, and passed in. When shejoined him again, she was downcast. They went straight to Adela's hotel,where the one thing which gave her animation was the hearing that Mr.Sedley had met an English doctor there, and had placed himself in hishands. Adela dressed splendidly for her presentation to the duchess.Having done so, she noticed Vittoria's depressed countenance anddifficult breathing. She commanded her to see the doctor. Vittoriaconsented, and made use of him. She could tell Laura confidently atnight that Wilfrid would not betray Angelo, though she had not spokenone direct word to him on the subject.
Wilfrid was peculiarly adept in the idle game he played. One who isintent upon an evil end is open to expose his plan. But he had none inview; he lived for the luxurious sensation of being near the woman whofascinated him, and who was now positively abashed when by his side.Adela suggested to him faintly--she believed it was her spontaneousidea--that he might be making his countess jealous. He assured her thatthe fancy sprang from scenes
which she remembered, and that she couldhave no idea of the pride of a highborn Austrian girl, who was incapableof conceiving jealousy of a person below her class. Adela repliedthat it was not his manner so much as Emilia's which might arouse thesuspicion; but she immediately affected to appreciate the sentimentsof a highborn Austrian girl toward a cantatrice, whose gifts we regardsimply as an aristocratic entertainment. Wilfrid induced his sister torelate Vittoria's early history to Countess Lena; and himself almostwondered, when he heard it in bare words, at that haunting vision of theglory of Vittoria at La Scala--where, as he remembered, he would haverun against destruction to cling to her lips. Adela was at first alarmedby the concentrated wrathfulness which she discovered in the bosom ofCountess Anna, who, as their intimacy waxed, spoke of the intrudingopera siren in terms hardly proper even to married women; but it seemedright, as being possibly aristocratic. Lena was much more tolerant."I have just the same enthusiasm for soldiers that my Wilfrid has forsingers," she said; and it afforded Adela exquisite pleasure to hearher tell how that she had originally heard of the 'eccentric youngEnglishman,' General Pierson's nephew, as a Lustspiel--a comedy; and ofhis feats on horseback, and his duels, and his--"he was very wickedover here, you know;" Lena laughed. She assumed the privileges of herfour-and-twenty years and her rank. Her marriage was to take place inthe Spring. She announced it with the simplicity of an independent womanof the world, adding, "That is, if my Wilfrid will oblige me by notplunging into further disgrace with the General."
"No; you will not marry a man who is under a cloud," Anna subjoined.
"Certainly not a soldier," said Lena. "What it was exactly that hedid at La Scala, I don't know, and don't care to know, but he was thenignorant that she had touched the hand of that Guidascarpi. I decide bythis--he was valiant; he defied everybody: therefore I forgive him. Heis not in disgrace with me. I will reinstate him."
"You have your own way of being romantic," said Anna. "A soldier whoforgets his duty is in my opinion only a brave fool."
"It seems to me that a great many gallant officers are fond of finevoices," Lena retorted.
"No doubt it is a fashion among them," said Anna.
Adela recoiled with astonishment when she began to see the light inwhich the sisters regarded Vittoria; and she was loyal enough to hintand protest on her friend's behalf. The sisters called her a very goodsoul. "It may not be in England as over here," said Anna. "We have tosubmit to these little social scourges."
Lena whispered to Adela, "An angry woman will think the worst. I have nodoubt of my Wilfrid. If I had!--"
Her eyes flashed. Fire was not wanting in her.
The difficulties which tasked the amiable duchess to preserve an outwardshow of peace among the antagonistic elements she gathered together wereincreased by the arrival at the castle of Count Lenkenstein, Bianca'shusband, and head of the family, from Bologna. He was a tall and courtlyman, who had one face for his friends and another for the reverse party;which is to say, that his manners could be bad. Count Lenkenstein wasaccompanied by Count Serabiglione, who brought Laura's children withtheir Roman nurse, Assunta. Laura kissed her little ones, and sent themout of her sight. Vittoria found her home in their play and prattle.She needed a refuge, for Count Lenkenstein was singularly brutal inhis bearing toward her. He let her know that he had come to Meran tosuperintend the hunt for the assassin, Angelo Guidascarpi. He attemptedto exact her promise in precise speech that she would be on the spotto testify against Angelo when that foul villain should be caught. Heobjected openly to Laura's children going about with her. Bitter talkon every starting subject was exchanged across the duchess's table.She herself was in disgrace on Laura's account, and had to practisean overflowing sweetness, with no one to second her efforts. The twonoblemen spoke in accord on the bubble revolution. The strong hand--ay,the strong hand! The strong hand disposes of vermin. Laura listenedto them, pallid with silent torture. "Since the rascals have takento assassination, we know that we have them at the dregs," said CountLenkenstein. "A cord round the throats of a few scores of them, and thecountry will learn the virtue of docility."
Laura whispered to her sister: "Have you espoused a hangman?"
Such dropping of deadly shells in a quiet society went near toscattering it violently; but the union was necessitous. CountLenkenstein desired to confront Vittoria with Angelo; Laura would notquit her side, and Amalia would not expel her friend. Count Lenkensteincomplained roughly of Laura's conduct; nor did Laura escape her father'sreproof. "Sir, you are privileged to say what you will to me," sheresponded, with the humility which exasperated him.
"Yes, you bend, you bend, that you may be stiff-necked when it suitsyou," he snapped her short.
"Surely that is the text of the sermon you preach to our Italy!"
"A little more, as you are running on now, madame, and our Italy will befroth on the lips. You see, she is ruined."
"Chi lo fa, lo sa," hummed Laura; "but I would avoid quoting you as thatauthority."
"After your last miserable fiasco, my dear!"
"It was another of our school exercises. We had not been good boysand girls. We had learnt our lesson imperfectly. We have received ourpunishment, and we mean to do better next time."
"Behave seasonably, fittingly; be less of a wasp; school your tongue."
"Bianca is a pattern to me, I am aware," said Laura.
"She is a good wife."
"I am a poor widow."
"She is a good daughter."
"I am a wicked rebel."
"And you are scheming at something now," said the little nobleman,sagacious so far; but he was too eager to read the verification of thetentative remark in her face, and she perceived that it was a guessfounded on her show of spirit.
"Scheming to contain my temper, which is much tried," she said. "But Isuppose it supports me. I can always keep up against hostility."
"You provoke it; you provoke it."
"My instinct, then, divines my medicine."
"Exactly, my dear; your personal instinct. That instigates you all. Andnone are so easily conciliated as these Austrians. Conciliate them, andyou have them." Count Serabiglione diverged into a repetition of histheory of the policy and mission of superior intelligences, as regardedhis system for dealing with the Austrians.
Nurse Assunta's jealousy was worked upon to separate the children fromVittoria. They ran down with her no more to meet the vast bowls ofgrapes in the morning and feather their hats with vine leaves. Deprivedof her darlings, the loneliness of her days made her look to Wilfridfor commiseration. Father Bernardus was too continually exhortative, andfenced too much to "hit the eyeball of her conscience," as he phrasedit, to afford her repose. Wilfrid could tell himself that he had alreadydone much for her; for if what he had done were known, his career,social and military, was ended. This idea being accompanied by a senseof security delighted him; he was accustomed to inquire of Angelo'scondition, and praise the British doctor who was attending himgratuitously. "I wish I could get him out of the way," he said, andfrowned as in a mental struggle. Vittoria heard him repeat his "I wish!"It heightened greatly her conception of the sacrifice he would be makingon her behalf and charity's. She spoke with a reverential tenderness,such as it was hard to suppose a woman capable of addressing to otherthan the man who moved her soul. The words she uttered were pure thanks;it was the tone which sent them winged and shaking seed. She had spokenpartly to prompt his activity, but her self-respect had been sustainedby his avoidance of the dreaded old themes, and that grateful feelingmade her voice musically rich.
"I dare not go to him, but the doctor tells me the fever has left him,Wilfrid; his wounds are healing; but he is bandaged from head tofoot. The sword pierced his side twice, and his arms and hands are cuthorribly. He cannot yet walk. If he is discovered he is lost. CountLenkenstein has declared that he will stay at the castle till he has himhis prisoner. The soldiers are all round us. They know that Angelo isin the ring. They have traced him all over from the Valtellina to thisU
ltenthal, and only cannot guess where he is in the lion's jaw. I risein the morning, thinking, 'Is this to be the black day?' He is sure tobe caught."
"If I could hit on a plan," said Wilfrid, figuring as though he had adiorama of impossible schemes revolving before his eyes.
"I could believe in the actual whispering of an angel if you did. It wasto guard me that Angelo put himself in peril."
"Then," said Wilfrid, "I am his debtor. I owe him as much as my life isworth."
"Think, think," she urged; and promised affection, devotion, veneration,vague things, that were too like his own sentiments to prompt himpointedly. Yet he so pledged himself to her by word, and prepared hisown mind to conceive the act of service, that (as he did not reflect)circumstance might at any moment plunge him into a gulf. Conduct of thissort is a challenge sure to be answered.
One morning Vittoria was gladdened by a letter from Rocco Ricci, who hadfled to Turin. He told her that the king had promised to give her a warmwelcome in his capital, where her name was famous. She consulted withLaura, and they resolved to go as soon as Angelo could stand on hisfeet. Turin was cold--Italy, but it was Italy; and from Turin theItalian army was to flow, like the Mincio from the Garda lake. "Andthere, too, is a stage," Vittoria thought, in a suddenly revived thirstfor the stage and a field for work. She determined to run down to Meranand see Angelo. Laura walked a little way with her, till Wilfrid, alertfor these occasions, joined them. On the commencement of the zig-zagbelow, there were soldiers, the sight of whom was not confusing.Military messengers frequently came up to the castle where CountLenkenstein, assisted by Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions,the Italian in the manner of a winding lawyer, the German of a gruffjudge. Half-way down the zig-zag Vittoria cast a preconcerted signalback to Laura. The soldiers had a pair of prisoners between their ranks;Vittoria recognized the men who had carried Captain Weisspriess from theground where the duel was fought. A quick divination told her that theyheld Angelo's life on their tongues. They must have found him in themountain-pass while hurrying to their homes, and it was they who hadled him to Meran. On the Passeyr bridge, she turned and said to Wilfrid,"Help me now. Send instantly the doctor in a carriage to the place wherehe is lying."
Wilfrid was intent on her flushed beauty and the half-compressed quiverof her lip.
She quitted him and hurried to Angelo. Her joy broke out in a cry ofthankfulness at sight of Angelo; he had risen from his bed; he couldstand, and he smiled.
"That Jacopo is just now the nearest link to me," he said, when sherelated her having seen the two men guarded by soldiers; he felthelpless, and spoke in resignation. She followed his eye about the roomtill it rested on the stilet. This she handed to him. "If they think ofhaving me alive!" he said softly. The Italian and his wife who had givenhim shelter and nursed him came in, and approved his going, though theydid not complain of what they might chance to have incurred. He offeredthem his purse, and they took it. Minutes of grievous expectation wentby; Vittoria could endure them no longer; she ran out to the hotel,near which, in the shade of a poplar, Wilfrid was smoking quietly.He informed her that his sister and the doctor had driven out to meetCaptain Gambier; his brother-in-law was alone upstairs. Her look ofamazement touched him more shrewdly than scorn, and he said, "What onearth can I do?"
"Order out a carriage. Send your brother-in-law in it. If you tell him'for your health,' he will go."
"On my honour, I don't know where those three words would not send him,"said Wilfrid; but he did not move, and was for protesting that hereally could not guess what was the matter, and the ground for all thisurgency.
Vittoria compelled her angry lips to speak out her suspicionsexplicitly, whereupon he glanced at the sun-glare in a meditation,occasionally blinking his eyes. She thought, "Oh, heaven! can he bewaiting for me to coax him?" It was the truth, though it would have beenstrange to him to have heard it. She grew sure that it was the truth;never had she despised living creature so utterly as when she murmured,"My best friend! my brother! my noble Wilfrid! my old beloved! help menow, without loss of a minute."
It caused his breath to come and go unevenly.
"Repeat that--once, only once," he said.
She looked at him with the sorrowful earnestness which, as its meaningwas shut from him, was so sweet.
"You will repeat it by-and-by?--another time? Trust me to do myutmost. Old beloved! What is the meaning of 'old beloved'? One word inexplanation. If it means anything, I would die for you! Emilia, do youhear?--die for you! To me you are nothing old or by-gone, whatever Imay be to you. To me--yes, I will order the carriage you are theEmilia--listen! listen! Ah! you have shut your ears against me. I ambound in all seeming, but I--you drive me mad; you know your power.Speak one word, that I may feel--that I may be convinced,... or not asingle word; I will obey you without. I have said that you command mylife."
In a block of carriages on the bridge, Vittoria perceived a lifted hand.It was Laura's; Beppo was in attendance on her. Laura drove up and said:"You guessed right; where is he?" The communications between them weremore indicated than spoken. Beppo had heard Jacopo confess to his havingconducted a wounded Italian gentleman into Meran. "That means that thehouses will be searched within an hour," said Laura; "my brother-in-lawBear is radiant." She mimicked the Lenkenstein physiognomy spontaneouslyin the run of her speech. "If Angelo can help himself ever so little, hehas a fair start." A look was cast on Wilfrid; Vittoria nodded--Wilfridwas entrapped.
"Englishmen we can trust," said Laura, and requested him to step intoher carriage. He glanced round the open space. Beppo did the same, andbeheld the chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz crossing the bridge onfoot, but he said nothing. Wilfrid was on the step of the carriage, forwhat positive object neither he nor the others knew, when his sister andthe doctor joined them. Captain Gambier was still missing.
"He would have done anything for us," Vittoria said in Wilfrid'shearing.
"Tell us what plan you have," the latter replied fretfully.
She whispered: "Persuade Adela to make her husband drive out. The doctorwill go too, and Beppo. They shall take Angelo. Our carriage will followempty, and bring Mr. Sedley back."
Wilfrid cast his eyes up in the air, at the monstrous impudence of theproject. "A storm is coming on," he suggested, to divert her reading ofhis grimace; but she was speaking to the doctor, who readily answeredher aloud: "If you are certain of what you say." The remark incitedWilfrid to be no subordinate in devotion; handing Adela from thecarriage, while the doctor ran up to Mr. Sedley, he drew her away. Lauraand Vittoria watched the motion of their eyes and lips.
"Will he tell her the purpose?" said Laura.
Vittoria smiled nervously: "He is fibbing."
Marking the energy expended by Wilfrid in this art, the wiser womansaid: "Be on your guard the next two minutes he gets you alone."
"You see his devotion."
"Does he see his compensation? But he must help us at any hazard."
Adela broke away from her brother twice, and each time he fixed herto the spot more imperiously. At last she ran into the hotel; she wascrying. "A bad economy of tears," said Laura, commenting on the dumbscene, to soothe her savage impatience. "In another twenty minutes weshall have the city gates locked."
They heard a window thrown up; Mr. Sedley's head came out, and peered atthe sky. Wilfrid said to Vittoria: "I can do nothing beyond what I havedone, I fear."
She thought it was a petition for thanks, but Laura knew better; shesaid: "I see Count Lenkenstein on his way to the barracks."
Wilfrid bowed: "I may be able to serve you in that quarter."
He retired: whereupon Laura inquired how her friend could reasonablysuppose that a man would ever endure being thanked in public.
"I shall never understand and never care to understand them," saidVittoria.
"It is a knowledge that is forced on us, my dear. May heaven make theminds of our enemies stupid for the next five hours!--Apropos of whatI was saying, women and men
are in two hostile camps. We have a sortof general armistice and everlasting strife of individuals--Ah!" sheclapped hands on her knees, "here comes your doctor; I could fancy I seea pointed light on his head. Men of science, my Sandra, are always thehumanest."
The chill air of wind preceding thunder was driving round the head ofthe vale, and Mr. Sedley, wrapped in furs, and feebly remonstrating withhis medical adviser, stepped into his carriage. The doctor followed him,giving a grave recognition of Vittoria's gaze. Both gentlemen raisedtheir hats to the ladies, who alighted as soon as they had gone in thedirection of the Vintschgau road.
"One has only to furnish you with money, my Beppo," said Vittoria,complimenting his quick apprehensiveness. "Buy bread and cakes at one ofthe shops, and buy wine. You will find me where you can, when youhave seen him safe. I have no idea of where my home will be. PerhapsEngland."
"Italy, Italy! faint heart," said Laura.
Furnished with money, Beppo rolled away gaily.
The doubt was in Laura whether an Englishman's wits were to be relied onin such an emergency; but she admitted that the doctor had looked fullenough of serious meaning, and that the Englishman named Merthyr Powyswas keen and ready. They sat a long half-hour, that thumped itselfout like an alarm-bell, under the poplars, by the clamouring Passeyr,watching the roll and spring of the waters, and the radiant foam, whileband-music played to a great company of visitors, and sounds of thunderdrew near. Over the mountains above the Adige, the leaden fingers ofan advance of the thunder-cloud pushed slowly, and on a sudden a mightygale sat heaped blank on the mountain-top and blew. Down went the headsof the poplars, the river staggered in its leap, the vale was shudderinggrey. It was like the transformation in a fairy tale; Beauty had takenher old cloak about her, and bent to calamity. The poplars streamedtheir length sideways, and in the pauses of the strenuous wind noddedand dashed wildly and white over the dead black water, that waxed infoam and hissed, showing its teeth like a beast enraged. Lauraand Vittoria joined hands and struggled for shelter. The tent of atravelling circus from the South, newly-pitched on a grassplot near theriver, was caught up and whirled in the air and flung in the face ofa marching guard of soldiery, whom it swathed and bore sheer to earth,while on them and around them a line of poplars fell flat, the windwhistling over them. Laura directed Vittoria's eyes to the sight. "See,"she said, and her face was set hard with cold and excitement, so thatshe looked a witch in the uproar; "would you not say the devil is loosenow Angelo is abroad?" Thunder and lightning possessed the vale, andthen a vertical rain. At the first gleam of sunlight, Laura and Vittoriawalked up to the Laubengasse--the street of the arcades, where theymade purchases of numerous needless articles, not daring to enter theItalian's shop. A woman at a fruitstall opposite to it told them that nocarriage could have driven up there. During their great perplexity, mudand rain-stained soldiers, the same whom they had seen borne to earth bythe flying curtain, marched before the shop; the shop and the house weresearched; the Italian and his old liming wife were carried away.
"Tell me now, that storm was not Angelo's friend!" Laura muttered.
"Can he have escaped?" said Vittoria.
"He is 'on horseback.'" Laura quoted the Italian proverb to signify thathe had flown; how, she could not say, and none could inform her. The joyof their hearts rose in one fountain.
"I shall feel better blood in my body from this moment," Laura said; andVittoria, "Oh! we can be strong, if we only resolve."
"You want to sing?"
"I do."
"I shall find pleasure in your voice now."
"The wicked voice!"
"Yes, the very wicked voice! But I shall be glad to hear it. You cansing to-night, and drown those Lenkensteins."
"If my Carlo could hear me!"
"Ah!" sighed the signora, musing. "He is in prison now. I remember him,the dearest little lad, fencing with my husband for exercise after theyhad been writing all day. When Giacomo was imprisoned, Carlo sat outsidethe prison walls till it was time for him to enter; his chin and upperlip were smooth as a girl's. Giacomo said to him, 'May you always havethe power of going out, or not have a wife waiting for you.' Here theycome." (She spoke of tears.) "It's because I am joyful. The channel forthem has grown so dry that they prick and sting. Oh, Sandra! it would bepleasant to me if we might both be buried for seven days, and have onelong howl of weakness together. A little bite of satisfaction makesme so tired. I believe there's something very bad for us in our alwaysbeing at war, and never, never gaining ground. Just one spark of triumphintoxicates us. Look at all those people pouring out again. They arethe children of fair weather. I hope the state of their health does nottrouble them too much. Vienna sends consumptive patients here. If youregard them attentively, you will observe that they have an anxious air.Their constitutions are not sound; they fear they may die."
Laura's irony was unforced; it was no more than a subtle discordnaturally struck from the scene by a soul in contrast with it.
They beheld the riding forth of troopers and a knot of officers hotlyconversing together. At another point the duchess and the Lenkensteinladies, Count Lenkenstein, Count Serabiglione, and Wilfrid paced up anddown, waiting for music. Laura left the public places and crossed anupper bridge over the Passeyr, near the castle, by which route sheskirted vines and dropped over sloping meadows to some shaded boulderswhere the Passeyr found a sandy bay, and leaped in transparent green,and whitened and swung twisting in a long smooth body down a narrowchasm, and noised below. The thundering torrent stilled theirsensations: and the water, making battle against great blocks ofporphyry and granite, caught their thoughts. So strong was theimpression of it on Vittoria's mind, that for hours after, every imageshe conceived seemed proper to the inrush and outpour; the elbowing, thetossing, the foaming, the burst on stones, and silvery bubbles under andsilvery canopy above, the chattering and huzzaing; all working on to theone-toned fall beneath the rainbow on the castle-rock.
Next day, the chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz deposed in fullcompany at Sonnenberg, that, obeying Count Serabiglione's instructions,he had gone down to the city, and had there seen Lieutenant Pierson withthe ladies in front of the hotel; he had followed the English carriage,which took up a man who was standing ready on crutches at the cornerof the Laubengasse, and drove rapidly out of the North-western gate,leading to Schlanders and Mals and the Engadine. He had witnessed thetransfer of the crippled man from one carriage to another, and hadraised shouts and given hue and cry, but the intervention of the stormhad stopped his pursuit.
He was proceeding to say what his suppositions were. Count Lenkensteinlifted his finger for Wilfrid to follow him out of the room. CountSerabiglione went at their heels. Then Count Lenkenstein sent for hiswife, whom Anna and Lena accompanied.
"How many persons are you going to ruin in the course of your crusade,my dear?" the duchess said to Laura.
"Dearest, I am penitent when I succeed," said Laura.
"If that young man has been assisting you, he is irretrievably ruined."
"I am truly sorry for him."
"As for me, the lectures I shall get in Vienna are terrible to thinkof. This is the consequence of being the friend of both parties, and apeace-maker."
Count Serabiglione returned alone from the scene at the examination,rubbing his hands and nodding affably to his daughter. He maliciouslydeclined to gratify the monster of feminine curiosity in the lump, anddoled out the scene piecemeal. He might state, he observed, that it washe who had lured Beppo to listen at the door during the examinationof the prisoners; and who had then planted a spy on him--followingthe dictation of precepts exceedingly old. "We are generally beaten,duchess; I admit it; and yet we generally contrive to show the brain. AsI say, wed brains to brute force!--but my Laura prefers to bring abouta contest instead of an union, so that somebody is certain to be struck,and"--the count spread out his arms and bowed his head--"deserves theblow." He informed them that Count Lenkenstein had ordered LieutenantPierson down to Meran, and that t
he lieutenant might expect to becashiered within five days. "What does it matter?" he addressedVittoria. "It is but a shuffling of victims; Lieutenant Pierson in theplace of Guidascarpi! I do not object."
Count Lenkenstein withdrew his wife and sisters from Sonnenberginstantly. He sent an angry message of adieu to the duchess, informingher that he alone was responsible for the behaviour of the ladies of hisfamily. The poor duchess wept. "This means that I shall be summoned toVienna for a scolding, and have to meet my husband," she said to Laura,who permitted herself to be fondled, and barely veiled her exultation inher apology for the mischief she had done. An hour after the departureof the Lenkensteins, the castle was again officially visited by ColonelZofel. Vittoria and Laura received an order to quit the district ofMeran before sunset. The two firebrands dropped no tears. "I really amsorry for others when I succeed," said Laura, trying to look sad uponher friend.
"No; the heart is eaten out of you both by excitement," said theduchess.
Her tender parting, "Love me," in the ear of Vittoria, melted one heartof the two.
Count Serabiglione continued to be buoyed up by his own and hisdaughter's recent display of a superior intellectual dexterity until thecarriage was at the door and Laura presented her cheek to him. Hesaid, "You will know me a wise man when I am off the table." Hisgesticulations expressed "Ruin, headlong ruin!" He asked her how shecould expect him to be for ever repairing her follies. He was goingto Vienna; how could he dare to mention her name there? Not even in atrifle would she consent to be subordinate to authority. Laura checkedher replies--the surrendering, of a noble Italian life to the Austrianswas such a trifle! She begged only that a poor wanderer might departwith a father's blessing. The count refused to give it; he waved heroff in a fury of reproof; and so got smoothly over the fatal momentwhen money, or the promise of money, is commonly extracted from parentalsources, as Laura explained his odd behaviour to her companion. Thecarriage-door being closed, he regained his courtly composure; his furywas displaced by a chiding finger, which he presently kissed. Father.Bernardus was on the steps beside the duchess, and his blessing had notbeen withheld from Vittoria, though he half confessed to her that shewas a mystery in his mind, and would always be one.
"He can understand robust hostility," Laura said, when Vittoria recalledthe look of his benevolent forehead and drooping eyelids; "but robustductility does astonish him. He has not meddled with me; yet I am theone of the two who would be fair prey for an enterprising spiritualfather, as the destined roan of heaven will find out some day."
She bent and smote her lap. "How little they know us, my darling! Theytake fever for strength, and calmness for submission. Here is the worldbefore us, and I feel that such a man, were he to pounce on me now,might snap me up and lock me in a praying-box with small difficulty. AndI am the inveterate rebel! What is it nourishes you and keeps you alwaysaiming straight when you are alone? Once in Turin, I shall feel that Iam myself. Out of Italy I have a terrible craving for peace. It seemshere as if I must lean down to him, my beloved, who has left me."
Vittoria was in alarm lest Wilfrid should accost her while she drovefrom gate to gate of the city. They passed under the archway of the gateleading up to Schloss Tyrol, and along the road bordered by vines. Anold peasant woman stopped them with the signal of a letter in her hand."Here it is," said Laura, and Vittoria could not help smiling at hershrewd anticipation of it.
"May I follow?"
Nothing more than that was written.
But the bearer of the missive had been provided with a lead pencil toobtain the immediate reply.
"An admirable piece of foresight!" Laura's honest exclamation burstforth.
Vittoria had to look in Laura's face before she could gather her willto do the cruel thing which was least cruel. She wrote firmly:--"Neverfollow me."