CHAPTER XXXV
CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN--VITTORIA'S PERPLEXITY
The fall of Vicenza turned a tide that had overflowed its barriers withforce enough to roll it to the Adriatic. From that day it was as if aviolent wind blew East over Lombardy; flood and wind breaking hereand there a tree, bowing everything before them. City, fortress, andbattle-field resisted as the eddy whirls. Venice kept her brave coloursstreaming aloft in a mighty grasp despite the storm, but between Veniceand Milan there was this unutterable devastation,--so sudden a change,so complete a reversal of the shield, that the Lombards were at firstincredulous even in their agony, and set their faces against it as at amonstrous eclipse, as though the heavens were taking false oath of itsbeing night when it was day. From Vicenza and Rivoli, to Sommacampagna,and across Monte Godio to Custozza, to Volta on the right of the Mincio,up to the gates of Milan, the line of fire travelled, with a fantasticoverbearing swiftness that, upon the map, looks like the zig-zagelbowing of a field-rocket. Vicenza fell on the 11th of June; theAustrians entered Milan on the 6th of August. Within that short time theLombards were struck to the dust.
Countess Ammiani quitted Brescia for Bergamo before the worst hadhappened; when nothing but the king's retreat upon the Lombard capital,after the good fight at Volta, was known. According to the king'sproclamation the Piedmontese army was to defend Milan, and hope was notdead. Vittoria succeeded in repressing all useless signs of grief inthe presence of the venerable lady, who herself showed none, but simplyrecommended her accepted daughter to pray daily. "I can neither confessnor pray," Vittoria said to the priest, a comfortable, irritableecclesiastic, long attached to the family, and little able to deal withthis rebel before Providence, that would not let her swollen spiritbe bled. Yet she admitted to him that the countess possessed resourceswhich she could find nowhere; and she saw the full beauty of suchinimitable grave endurance. Vittoria's foolish trick of thinking forherself made her believe, nevertheless, that the countess sufferedmore than she betrayed, was less consoled than her spiritual comforterimagined. She continued obstinate and unrepentant, saying, "If mypunishment is to come, it will at least bring experience with it, and Ishall know why I am punished. The misery now is that I do not know, anddo not see, the justice of the sentence."
Countess Ammiani thought better of her case than the priest did; orshe was more indulgent, or half indifferent. This girl was Carlo'schoice;--a strange choice, but the times were strange, and the girl wasrobust. The channels of her own and her husband's house were drying onall sides; the house wanted resuscitating. There was promise that thegirl would bear children of strong blood. Countess Ammiani would not forone moment have allowed the spiritual welfare of the children to hangin dubitation, awaiting their experience of life; but a certainsatisfaction was shown in her faint smile when her confessor lamentedover Vittoria's proud stony state of moral revolt. She said to heraccepted daughter, "I shall expect you to be prepared to espouse my sonas soon as I have him by my side;" nor did Vittoria's silent bowing ofher face assure her that strict obedience was implied. Precise words--"Iwill," and "I will not fail"--were exacted. The countess showed someemotion after Vittoria had spoken. "Now, may God end this war quickly,if it is to go against us," she exclaimed, trembling in her chairvisibly a half-minute, with dropped eyelids and lips moving.
Carlo had sent word that he would join his mother as early as he wasdisengaged from active service, and meantime requested her to proceed toa villa on Lago Maggiore. Vittoria obtained permission from the countessto order the route of the carriage through Milan, where she wished totake up her mother and her maid Giacinta. For other reasons she wouldhave avoided the city. The thought of entering it was painful with theshrewdest pain. Dante's profoundly human line seemed branded on theforehead 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 ofvolunteer youth and citizens, all of them listening to the voice of onewho stood a few steps above them holding a banner. She gave an outcryof bitter joy. It was the Chief. On one side of him was Agostino, in themidst of memorable heads that were unknown to her. The countess refusedto stay, though Vittoria strained her hands together in extreme entreatythat she might for a few moments hear what the others were hearing. "Ispeak for my son, and I forbid it," Countess Ammiani said. Vittoria fellback and closed her eyes to cherish the vision. All those faces raisedto the one speaker under the dark sky were beautiful. He had breathedsome new glory of hope in them, making them shine beneath the overcastheavens, as when the sun breaks from an evening cloud and flushes thestems of a company of pine-trees.
Along the road to Milan she kept imagining his utterance until her heartrose with music. A delicious stream of music, thin as poor tears, passedthrough her frame, like a life reviving. She reached Milan in a mood tobear the idea of temporary defeat. Music had forsaken her so long thatcelestial reassurance seemed to return with it.
Her mother was at Zotti's, very querulous, but determined not toleave the house and the few people she knew. She had, as she told herdaughter, fretted so much on her account that she hardly knew whethershe was glad to see her. Tea, of course, she had given up all thoughtsof; but now coffee was rising, and the boasted sweet bread of Lombardywas something to look at! She trusted that Emilia would soon think ofsinging no more, and letting people rest: she might sing when she wantedmoney. A letter recently received from Mr. Pericles said that Italy washer 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 peoplelived like real Christians, not----Vittoria flapped her hand, andwould not hear of the unchristian crimes of the South. As regarded theexpected defence of Milan, the little woman said, that if it brought ona bombardment, she would call it unpardonable wickedness, and only hopedthat her daughter would repent.
Zotti stood by, interpreting the English to himself by tones. "Theamiable donnina is not of our persuasion," he observed. "She remainsdissatisfied with patriotic Milan. I have exhibited to her my dabs ofbread through all the processes of making and baking. It is in vain. Sherejects 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 wayby your excellent mother."
"Zotti has not been paid for three weeks, and he certainly has notmentioned it or looked it, I will say, Emilia."
"Zotti has had something to think of during the last three weeks," saidVittoria, 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 laidin a stock of flour, in the expectation that Carlo Alberto would defendthe city: The Milanese were ready to aid him, though some, as Zotticonfessed, had ceased to effervesce; and a great number who wereperfectly ready to fight regarded his tardy appeal to Italian patriotismvery coldly. Zotti set out in person to discover Giacinta. The girlcould hardly fetch her breath when she saw her mistress. She was inLaura's service, and said that Laura had brought a wounded Englishmanfrom the field of Custozza. Vittoria hurried to Laura, with whom shefound Merthyr, blue-white as a corpse, having been shot through thebody. 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 allspeaking of the war or allusion to a single incident of the miserablecampaign, beyond the bare recital of Vittoria's adventures; yet whenVicenza by chance was mentioned, she burst out: "They are not cities,they are living shrieks. They have been made impious for ever. Burn themto ashes, that they may not breathe foul upon heaven!" She had clung tothe 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 othersI have nursed. Generally, when they looked at me, they appeared obligedto recollect that it was not I who had hurt them. Poor souls! some endedin gre
at torment. 'I think of them as the happiest; for pain is a cloakthat wraps you about, and I remember one middle-aged man who died softlyat Custozza, and said, 'Beaten!' To take that thought as your travellingcompanion into the gulf, must be worse than dying of agony; at least, Ithink so."
Vittoria was too well used to Laura's way of meeting disaster to expectfrom her other than this ironical fortitude, in which the fortitudeleaned so much upon the irony. What really astonished her was theconception Laura had taken of the might of Austria. Laura did notdirectly speak of it, but shadowed it in allusive hints, much as ifshe had in her mind the image of an iron roller going over a field offlowers--hateful, imminent, irresistible. She felt as a leaf that hasbeen flying before the gale.
Merthyr's wound was severe: Vittoria could not leave him. Her resolutionto stay in Milan brought her into collision with Countess Ammiani, whenthe countess reminded her of her promise, sedately informing her thatshe 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 manwas medically certified to. It was incomprehensible to her that Vittoriashould reject her terms; and though it was true that she would not havelistened to a reason, she was indignant at not hearing one given inmitigation of the offence. She set out alone on her journey, deeplyhurt. The reason was a feminine sentiment, and Vittoria was naturallyunable to speak it. She shrank with pathetic horror from the thought ofMerthyr's rising from his couch to find her a married woman, and desiredmost earnestly that her marriage should be witnessed by him. Young womenwill know how to reconcile the opposition of the sentiment. Had Merthyrbeen only slightly wounded, and sound enough to seem to be able to beara bitter shock, she would not have allowed her personal feelings tocause chagrin to the noble lady. The sight of her dear steadfast friendprostrate 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 withhis old brave firmness, made it impossible for her to act decisively inone direct line of conduct.
Countess Ammiani wrote brief letters from Luino and Pallanza on LagoMaggiore. She said that Carlo was in the Como mountains; he would expectto find his bride, and would accuse his mother; "but his mother will bespared those reproaches," she added, "if the last shot fired kills, asit 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, andshowed her another view of her features. She wept with longing for loveand dependence. She was sick of personal freedom, tired of the exerciseof her will, only too eager to give herself to her beloved. Theblessedness of marriage, of peace and dependence, came on herimagination like a soft breeze from a hidden garden, like sleep. Butthis very longing created the resistance to it in the depths of hersoul. 'There was a light as of reviving life, or of pain comforted, whenit was she who was sitting by Merthyr's side, and when at times she sawthe hopeless effort of his hand to reach to hers, or during the longstill hours she laid her head on his pillow, and knew that he breathedgratefully. The sweetness of helping him, and of making his breathingpleasant to him, closed much of the world which lay beyond her windowsto her thoughts, and surprised her with an unknown emotion, so strangeto her that when it first swept up her veins she had the fancy of herhaving been touched by a supernatural hand, and heard a flying accord ofinstruments. She was praying before she knew what prayer was. A crucifixhung over Merthyr's head. She had looked on it many times, and looked onit still, without seeing more than the old sorrow. In the night it wasdim. She found herself trying to read the features of the thorn-crownedHead in the solitary night. She and it were alone with a life thatwas faint above the engulphing darkness. She prayed for the life, andtrembled, and shed tears, and would have checked them; they seemed tobe bearing away her little remaining strength. The tears streamed. Noanswer was given to her question, "Why do I weep?" She wept when Merthyrhad passed the danger, as she had wept when the hours went by, withshrouded visages; and though she felt the difference m the springs ofher tears, she thought them but a simple form of weakness showing shadeand light.
These tears were a vanward wave of the sea to follow; the rising of hervoice to heaven was no more than a twitter of the earliest dawn beforethe coming of her soul's outcry.
"I have had a weeping fit," she thought, and resolved to remember ittenderly, as being associated with her friend's recovery, and a singularmasterful power absolutely to look on the Austrians marching up thestreets of Milan, and not to feel the surging hatred, or the nervelessdespair, which she had supposed must be her alternatives.
It is a mean image to say that the entry of the Austrians into thereconquered city was like a river of oil permeating a lake of vinegar,but it presents the fact in every sense. They demanded nothing more thansubmission, and placed a gentle foot upon the fallen enemy; and whereverthey 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. Vittoriacommitted a public indiscretion on the day when the king left Milan toits fate: word whereof was conveyed to Carlo Ammiani, and he wrote toher.
"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 hehad unmasked himself, and when he was quitting the Greppi palace, andthat she kissed his hand before the people--poor bleeding people ofMilan! This is what I hear in the Val d'Intelvi:--that she despisedthe misery and just anger of the people, and, by virtue of her name andmine, obtained a way for him. How can she have acted so as to give acolour to this infamous scandal? True or false, it does not affect mylove for her. Still, my dearest, what shall I say? You keep me dividedin two halves. My heart is out of me; and if I had a will, I think Ishould be harsh with you. You are absent from my mother at a time whenwe are about to strike another blow. Go to her. It is kindness; it ischarity: I do not say duty. I remember that I did write harshly to youfrom Brescia. Then our march was so clear in view that a little thingruffled me. Was it a little thing? But to applaud the Traitor now! Touphold him who has spilt our blood only to hand the country over to theold gaolers! He lent us his army like a Jew, for huge interest. Canyou not read him? If not, cease, I implore you, to think at all foryourself.
"Is this a lover's letter? I know that my beloved will see the love init. To me your acts are fair and good as the chronicle of a saint. Ifind you creating suspicion--almost justifying it in others, and puttingyour name in the mouth of a madman who denounces you. I shall not speakmore of him. Remember that my faith in you is unchangeable, and I prayyou to have the same in me.
"I sent you a greeting from the Chief. He marched in the ranks fromBergamo. I saw him on the line of march strip off his coat to shelter ayoung lad from the heavy rain. He is not discouraged; none are who havebeen near him.
"Angelo is here, and so is our Agostino; and I assure you he loads andfires a carbine much more deliberately than he composes a sonnet. I amafraid 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 spoton the Vicentino is alone unclouded. If I live I will have that bit ofground. I will make a temple of it. I could reach it blindfolded."
A townsman of Milan brought this letter to Vittoria. She despatchedLuigi with her reply, which met the charge in a straightforwardaffirmative.
"I was driving to Zotti's by the Greppi palace, when I saw the king comeforth, and the people hooted him. I stood up, and petitioned to kiss hishand. 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 cannoteven add that I am sorry, though I strive to wish that I had not beenpresent. I might wish it really, if I did not feel it to be a cowardlywish.
"Oh, my Carlo! my lover! my husband! you would not have me go againstmy nature? I have seen the ki
ng upon the battle-field. He has deigned tospeak 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 sadeyes!--he looked sad and nothing else--and besides, I am sure I knowthe king. I mean that I understand him. I am half ashamed to write soboldly, even to you. I say to myself you should know me, at least; andif I am guilty of a piece of vanity, you should know that also. CarloAlberto is quite unlike other men. He worships success as, much; butthey are not, as he is, so much bettered by adversity. Indeed I donot believe that he has exact intentions of any sort, or ever had theintention 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, offerLombardy to him; and Venice gave herself--brave, noble Venice! Oh! if wetwo were there--Venice has England's sea-spirit. But, did we not flatterthe king? And ask yourself, my Carlo, could a king move in suchan enterprise as a common person? Ought we not to be in union withSardinia? How can we be if we reject her king? Is it not the onlypositive 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 getbeyond--they crave so for answers agreeing to them. This should makeme doubt myself, perhaps; but they crowd again, and seem so conclusiveuntil I have written them down. I am unworthy to struggle with yourintellect; but I say to myself, how unworthy of you I should be if Idid not use my own, such as it is! The poor king; had to conclude anarmistice to save his little kingdom. Perhaps we ought to think of thatsternly. My heart is; filled with pity.
"It cannot but be right that you should know the worst; of me. I callyou my husband, and tremble to be permitted to lean my head on yourbosom for hours, my sweet lover! And yet my cowardice, if I had let theking go by without a reverential greeting from me, in his adversity,would have rendered me insufferable to myself. You are hearing me, andI am compelled to say, that rather than behave so basely I would forfeityour 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 amblushing. The ground seems to rock; I can barely breathe; my heart islike a bird caught in the hands of a cruel boy: it will not rest. I feareverything. I hear a whisper, 'Delay not an instant!' and it is likea furnace; 'Hasten to him! Speed!' and I seem to totter forward anddrop--I think I have lost you--I am like one dead.
"I remain here to nurse our dear friend Merthyr. For that reason I amabsent 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 havein 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 isquite 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 makeour mother happy. This she wishes, this she lives for, this consolesher--and oh, this gives me peace! Yes, Merthyr is recovering! I canleave him without the dread I had; and Laura confesses to the femininesentiment, if her funny jealousy of a rival nurse is really simplyfeminine. She will be glad of our resolve, I am sure. And then you willorder all my actions; and I shall be certain that they are such as Iwould 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. InPallanza:--no not Pallanza--Paradise!
"Hush! and do not smile at me:--it was not my will, I discover, but mywant of will, that distracted me.
"See my last signature of--not Vittoria; for I may sign that again andstill be Emilia Alessandra Ammiani.
"SANDRA BELLONI"
The letter was sealed; Luigi bore it away, and a brief letter toCountess Ammiani, in Pallanza, as well.
Vittoria was relieved of her anxiety concerning Merthyr by the arrivalof Georgiana, who had been compelled to make her way round by Piacenzaand Turin, where she had left Gambier, with Beppo in attendance on him.Georgiana at once assumed all the duties of head-nurse, and the moreresolutely because of her brother's evident moral weakness in sighingfor the hand of a fickle girl to smooth his pillow. "When he is strongeryou can sit beside him a little," she said to Vittoria, who surrenderedher post without a struggle, and rarely saw him, though Laura told herthat his frequent exclamation was her name, accompanied by a soft lookat his sister--"which would have stirred my heart like poor old Milanlast March," Laura added, with a lift of her shoulders.
Georgiana's icy manner appeared infinitely strange to Vittoria whenshe heard from Merthyr that his sister had become engaged to CaptainGambier.
"Nothing softens these women," said Laura, putting Georgiana in a class.
"I wish you could try the effect of your winning Merthyr," Vittoriasuggested.
"I remember that when I went to my husband, I likewise wanted everywoman of my acquaintance to be married." Laura sighed deeply. "Whatis 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 tillmy children make me a grandmother, I shall look on the love of men andwomen as a toy that I have played with. A new husband? I must be draggedthrough the Circles of Dante before I can conceive it, and then I shouldloathe the stranger."
News came that the volunteers were crushed. It was time for Vittoriato start for Pallanza, and she thought of her leave-taking; a finalleave-taking, in one sense, to the friends who had cared too much forher. Laura delicately drew Georgiana aside in the sick-room, which shewould not quit, and alluded to the necessity for Vittoria's departurewithout stating exactly wherefore: but Georgiana was a Welshwoman.Partly to show her accurate power of guessing, and chiefly that shemight reprove Laura's insulting whisper, which outraged and irritatedher as much as if "Oh! your poor brother!" had been exclaimed, she madedisplay of Merthyr's manly coldness by saying aloud, "You mean, thatshe is going to her marriage." Laura turned her face to Merthyr. He hadstriven 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 intochildish sobs. Georgiana hurried Laura from the room. By-and-by thedoctor was promptly summoned, and it was Georgiana herself, miserablyhumbled, who obtained Vittoria's sworn consent to keep the life inMerthyr 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!"