But Maria was a woman, and women have quick ways which we do not anticipate. Instead of waiting, with her eyes in his, for him to bend down and kiss her, she put up her hands suddenly to draw his face to hers, and kissed him heartily on both cheeks; to his infinite delight, and not, we may hope, to the detriment of her truthfulness, her recent resolution, or her good faith in any way. For no one can be held responsible for a physical aversion. Many persons really suffer if a cat is in the room, and almost faint if the creature accidentally brushes against them. If any of them read these lines, they will understand, for that is what Maria felt for the man who was her husband, and who loved her almost to folly.
Two days later Maria received a letter from Naples, addressed in a round, commercial handwriting. It came with two or three others, of which she guessed the contents, and she opened it first from mere curiosity. No one had ever written her a business letter from Naples.
The envelope contained two sheets of paper. She spread out one of them to read, but at the first glance she uttered an exclamation of horror; what she saw was a photographed copy of one of Castiglione’s letters to her. Her fingers relaxed and the first sheet fluttered to the floor.
The second lay on the writing-table, and when she could collect her senses she saw that it was a typewritten communication demanding the immediate payment of one hundred and fifty thousand francs, failing which, the photographed copies of seven letters written to her by the Conte del Castiglione would be reproduced and published simultaneously in two newspapers, in Rome and in Naples. The money was to be forthcoming within exactly eight days in the form of a cheque to the bearer from the National Bank, to be addressed to Signor Carlo Pozzi at the General Post Office in Palermo, not registered. If it was not received within eight days, the Countess would be informed of the fact, and a duplicate of the cheque was to be sent, not registered, to SignorPaolo Pizzuti at the General Post Office in Messina. If this were not received, the writer would take it for granted that the money had not been sent, and the letters would appear. The photographs were in safe hands, and would inevitably be published at once if any attempt were made to arrest the persons who applied for the letters at the two post offices named, or if, subsequently, any steps were taken to trace the writer, either through the police or otherwise.
Maria’s first impulse was to send the money at once. She had been alone in the world so long that she was used to keeping her own accounts, and she knew that she possessed more than the sum demanded, in the form of Government bonds. To take these to the National Bank and get a duplicate cheque in exchange for them would be a simple matter, and the affair would be at an end. For her, the amount was a large one, but since she had come back to her husband she had little use for her own fortune, and did not spend her income. She would certainly not miss the sum. Immediate surrender would save Montalto all anxiety and annoyance.
But two objections to this course presented themselves almost immediately, the one of a moral nature, the other practical. Since she had told her husband everything, he had a right to be consulted. The original letters were in his possession, and no longer in hers; he had trusted her, and she must now go to him for advice, even if it troubled him, as it would, for if she did not consult him he would be justified in resenting her want of confidence in him.
The second consideration was that Leone might some day need her money, for she had not the least idea of the contents of her husband’s will. Under Italian law he could not altogether disinherit a child born in wedlock, and even that moiety of his fortune which must come to Leone would be very large. But Maria felt sure that he was aware of the truth, and that many others suspected it; and there were several collateral heirs to the Montalto estates, who would not hesitate to claim much more than the law would ever give them. Besides, there was Leone himself; who could tell by what ill chance he might some day learn the story of his birth? If he ever did, she guessed the man from the boy, and guessed that her son would not keep an hour what was not universally admitted to be his. He would have nothing, then, but what she could leave him.
Yet, if only this second reason had influenced her, she would not have hesitated to pay blackmail and be free. In the course of a few years, by spending little on herself, her fortune would recover from the sudden demand on it. On the other hand, if she hid the truth from her husband, even to save him, and if he ever discovered it, he might resent the concealment bitterly.
It was morning, and she went to his study at once, taking the papers with her, and she told him how Schmidt had stolen the letters and kept them some time, and how she had caught him just when he was bringing them back. It had never occurred to her that he had copied them, still less that he had photographed them. She beggedher husband to let her send the money at once and end the matter.
He had listened with a look of increasing annoyance, and she laid the sheets on the table before him when she had finished; but he pushed them back to her without glancing at them, for if he had done so he could hardly have helped reading some words of Castiglione’s letter.
‘It is very well done,’ he said. ‘Schmidt is a clever fellow. But if you had told me at once, he would have been in prison by this time. He disappeared on the third day after you found him in the chapel. You must not send the money on any account.’
Maria saw that he was more displeased than alarmed at a possible danger which looked very serious to her.
‘I am very sorry,’ she said penitently. ‘What is to be done?’
‘I cannot tell. It is a matter, too, on which I cannot ask advice. There are things of which one does not wish to speak, even to a lawyer.’
He was evidently very much annoyed; but she saw that she had done right in coming to him, though it was perhaps too late.
‘But something must be done!’ she protested.
‘Of course we must do something,’ he answered, with manifest impatience. ‘But it is worse than useless to act hastily. Give me time! I shall find a way.’
The words were not unkind, but his manner was petulant, like that of a nervous man who is interrupted when very busy, and is made to take a great deal of trouble against his inclination. Montalto had always been inclinedto procrastinate, though he could show a good deal of energy when forced to act.
‘Let me send the money, Diego,’ said Maria earnestly.
‘Certainly not. I forbid you to send it! Do you understand?’
Maria shrank a little, for she was hurt by the words and the tone. Was not her money her own, to use as she pleased? She checked a quick reply that rose to her lips.
‘I shall obey you,’ she answered, an instant later, as quietly as she could.
He was moving his papers nervously and aimlessly from place to place on the table, arranging and disarranging them, but he looked up quickly now.
‘I did not mean to speak as I did, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your money is yours, and you will never need it again. You have a right to use it as you will. The truth is, I am occupied with a very complicated question. Forgive me, if I was rude.’
‘Diego!’ She stretched her hand out on the smooth table, instantly reconciled.
He patted it twice, and smiled rather absently. But he was evidently preoccupied, and she rose to go.
‘We will talk over this unfortunate affair after luncheon,’ he said. ‘Will you take me for a drive? It will be easy to talk in the carriage.’
‘Yes, we will go for a drive,’ she answered.
Standing by the table, and watching his nervous hands that were busy with the papers again, she unconsciously read the clearly engrossed superscription on a heavy lawyer’s envelope:—
The Will of His Excellency Don Diego Silani,Count of Montalto
Maria bit her lip as she turned away, realising what that meant. It was no wonder that her husband was preoccupied just then, for she could not help suspecting that he had been in the act of drafting a new will when she had interrupted him, and she guessed that its tenor would be very different from that of the old one which lay before him, and which must have been made a good many years ago, for the thick envelope had the unmistakable, faded look of a document long put away with others. He had just said, too, that she would never need her own money again; but he had also told her that the matter was very complicated.
As she moved away he rose quickly to open the door. That was one of those formal little acts of courtesy which he had rarely omitted since they had been married.
She went back to her own room much more disturbed than when she had left it ten minutes earlier. Her knowledge of her husband’s mind and character told her that he would find arguments for putting off anything like real action until it might be too late to act at all; and yet her own ultimate advantage was doubtless the very reason why he had resented being disturbed.
It was not her fault if another image rose before her mental vision just then; but she drove it away so fiercely that it disappeared at once.
That afternoon, when they were driving together, they came to no conclusion. Montalto was afraid of beingoverheard by the men on the box, and he talked in French. But he was less at home in that language than most Romans are, and found it much more easy to say what he knew how to say, than to express what he really meant. Maria did not know Spanish, which he now spoke better than Italian, from having lived in Spain and spoken it with his mother during so many years. Maria chafed as she felt that precious time was passing, and that such a wretched obstacle as a servant not quite certainly within hearing was making it impossible to talk freely.
In the evening he was tired, and at first almost refused to refer to the subject. He said at last, however, that Schmidt was evidently in collusion with the South Italian gangs of malefactors, with the Camorra of Naples and the Mala Vita of Palermo. The letter showed this plainly enough, he said, and those people were capable of anything, especially including murder. To try and catch Signor Carlo Pozzi or Signor Paolo Pizzuti would be folly; no such persons existed, and if any one representing himself as either at a post office were actually arrested, it would be impossible to extract a word from him. Those men would go silently to prison for years, rather than betray an accomplice and be knived or shot in the back for it within twenty-four hours. There were many instances of this, Montalto said, and Schmidt had given another proof of his intelligence in demanding that the money should be paid through the Camorra or the Mala Vita. He added petulantly that he wished Schmidt were with him still, because only Schmidt could be clever enough to catch himself.
Maria tried to laugh, and this put her husband in a better humour. He said the simplest thing was to have a circular note from the Chief of Police sent to the Italian press, informing all the responsible editors of the dailies that an outrageous plot was on foot to attack the reputation of a lady of Rome by offering for publication certain alleged reproductions of letters already in the possession of her husband, who would bring an action, in the most public way, against any newspaper that even alluded to them. Maria answered that such a plan would succeed admirably with the respectable papers; but that, unfortunately, there were some which were just the contrary, and whose owners desired nothing better in the way of an advertisement than to be sued for libel, for collusion in forgery accessory after the fact, or for any other scandalous offence, because nothing would delight a certain class of their readers and increase their circulation so much as to see the name of the Countess of Montalto or any other Roman lady dragged through the mud.
This was unfortunately true, for Rome was much disturbed at that time by a revolutionary element of the most despicable sort, which was stirring up strife in every way, and was at the bottom of the frequent strikes, almost every one of which led to some open disturbance little short of a riot. That was the public that supported the disreputable papers, Maria said, and it would treble the circulation of any one of them that published a scandalous attack on decent people.
Maria knew far more about the condition of Rome and Italy than Montalto. He had exiled himself fromhis country for years, and had taken little interest in what happened there, whereas his wife had always been on intimate terms with Giuliana Parenzo, whose husband was now Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, after having been connected with the Government ever since he had left the University of Bologna.
It did not occur to Montalto to smile at the thought of having spent some time every evening in giving Maria a summary of the news he gathered chiefly from the Vatican newspapers. On the contrary, he felt quite sure that he understood the situation much better than she did, and he suddenly forgot the matter in hand and tried to launch upon one of those arguments in favour of the restoration of the Temporal Power, in which he delighted to engage with Monsignor Saracinesca.
But Maria refused to be led so far, and only said it was a matter she did not understand. She saw it was useless to bring him back to the point just then, so she listened quietly while he talked alone, till it was much later than usual. Then he solemnly conducted her to her own door, kissed her hand with a formal bow, while pressing it affectionately, and bade her good-night.
She felt almost desperate for a little while after she had dismissed her maid, for the first of the eight days was gone, and she saw no reason why Montalto should be any nearer to a conclusion a week hence than now. When he thought that a question concerned his conscience or the welfare of his soul, even in the most distant manner, she knew that he could make up his mind in twenty-fourhours as to what was right, and would certainly act on his decision at once. But in other matters eight days would seem to him as good as a year, and having generously accepted Maria’s assurance that the letters were in themselves perfectly innocent, he could hardly believe that there was any real danger. It seemed almost certain that he would reach no conclusion, and that they would be published before he could be induced to take any steps.
Again, as she lay awake in the quiet night, Maria saw Castiglione’s resolute face before her as clearly as if he had been standing in the room. She always slept in the dark, but she sat up in bed and covered her eyes with both her hands, and prayed aloud that the vision might not disturb her. She was so sure that he would have known what to do at once, and would have done it with ruthless energy.
Her prayers, or her will, or both, drove away the thought of him, and by and by she fell asleep in spite of her trouble, and did not wake till daylight.
She would not go to her husband’s study again in the morning, for he was without doubt still busy over the drafting of his will, and it would be foolish to run the risk of disturbing him. She felt very helpless. She had last seen the letters on that night in the chapel, when she had hastily glanced over them to be sure that nothing was missing; for when she had gone back to her room she had resolutely locked them up. That had been the night following the day of her meeting with Castiglione in the lift, when she had struggled so hard with herself, and hadmade her great resolution to put away his memory for the rest of her life.
The phrases came back to her now, some vividly, some only very vaguely; but there was the photograph of a part of one to help her. She tried to think of herself as another woman coming to her for help, in order to judge coldly of the effect such words must make on any one who should read them without knowing the truth she had called innocent; and in an instant it was dreadfully clear to her that they could only be interpreted in one way. Castiglione had never had the gift of writing; he had not been able to speak eloquently and convincingly of a spiritual love in which he could not believe. He had only found words to tell her that he loved her, that she was his queen of love, his idol, the saint on the altar of his heart, that he would do his best to be what she wished him to be, and that he honoured and respected her above and beyond all things visible and invisible.
Would any one believe that such language was innocent? Would any one but her husband have believed her when she said it was? Giuliana Parenzo had told her plainly that such a relation as she had dreamt of was impossible; so had Monsignor Saracinesca; and the implacable Capuchin had refused his absolution so long as she even entertained the thought of it. The world would most assuredly not believe that she had been without fault during those weeks; it was both futile and foolish to hope that it would.
The day passed as she had expected. She met Montalto at luncheon, and Leone was at the table as usual,so that it was impossible to allude to the subject. Her husband looked at the handsome boy affectionately from time to time, and then at Maria, and talked of little matters; Leone chattered of horses, and Maria encouraged him, because she herself could find so little to say.
‘Why don’t you have a racing stable, papa?’ he asked at last. ‘You know quite enough about it, I’m sure; and when I’m a little bigger I could be your jockey! It would be such fun, and between us we should win everything!’
Maria laughed a little. Her husband smiled kindly and shook his head.
‘My dear little man,’ he said, ‘when you are the master of Montalto and have a boy of your own, you may keep a racing stable if you like and let your son ride races for you. But I am not going to encourage you to break your neck! Do you remember that poor lad who was killed at the Capannelle?’
‘Yes,’ Leone answered, growing suddenly grave, for he had been taken to the races for the first time on that day, and had seen the fatal accident. ‘But I shall never be the master, papa, you know.’
Maria’s face changed, and she looked down at her plate.
‘Why not?’ asked her husband, smiling again.
‘Because I couldn’t be, unless you were dead. And that’s ridiculous!’
‘We shall see, my boy, we shall see,’ answered Montalto.‘At all events we need not talk about dying yet. You are quite right about that.’
The words made a deep impression on Maria, who knew that he was making a new will. He could only mean that Leone was to have Montalto, which it would have been in his power to leave to another branch of his family, or indeed to any one he pleased; and Montalto meant everything. She could not doubt that he knew perfectly well what he was doing; he had added one more generous deed to the many he had done in the course of that large forgiveness that had brought him back to her.
He could do such things as this, and yet he could not lift his hand to hinder a disaster that might wreck the honour of his name, with her own, and Leone’s. He went out after luncheon, saying that he had an appointment, and she did not see him till dinner-time, when Leone always had his supper with them, unless some one came to dine. And later he was in the loving mood she dreaded most. The second of the eight days had passed and nothing had been done yet. After two or three more like these, the situation would become absolutely desperate.
Maria made up her mind that night that if her husband came to no decision in twenty-four hours, she would go to the National Bank and buy the cheques. After all it was better to disobey Montalto’s express injunction, if obedience was to mean ruin.
She longed intensely for help, but there was none in sight. She could not tell Giuliana all that had passed between her husband and herself to bring about the present situation; still less could she appeal to Monsignor Saracinesca, who knew very little of the truth.
On the next day Montalto talked again about a circular notice to the press, saying there was plenty of time, because the blackmailer’s letter did not say that the letters would be published in eight days, but that if the money had not been received by that time a second demand would be sent to Maria, on the supposition that the first draft might have been lost, which would mean a lapse of several days more.
‘Let us go together to the Chief of Police,’ entreated Maria. ‘We need only say that it concerns certain old letters, in your possession, which might compromise me.’
‘That is quite impossible, my dear, without very mature reflection,’ answered Montalto, with exasperating calm.
‘But surely we have been reflecting these three days! If you do not go to the police, how can you ever get a circular sent to the press?’
‘But, my dear child, there is really no such hurry!’
He did not often call her his ‘dear child’; it was one of his small ways of showing that he was impatient, and she understood at once that it was of no use to insist.
‘Diego,’ she said, ‘unless you can find some better way, I shall send the money to-morrow, although you forbade me to do so, and I promised to obey you.’
‘My dear Maria,’ he cried, almost angrily, ‘how you take up every word I say! I certainly apologised to you for using such an expression as “forbid,” so, for heaven’s sake, let us say no more about it! I only beg you not to submit to this outrageous extortion. I entreat you not to send the money. That is all I mean to say.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Maria answered; ‘but unless some better way can be found, I shall have to pay.’
‘It is madness,’ said Montalto; ‘pure madness!’
And, to her great surprise, he got up abruptly and left the room without another word, evidently much displeased.
For the third time she saw Castiglione’s resolute face before her, as distinctly as if he had been in the room, and the vision came so unexpectedly that she felt her heart leap, and drew a sharp breath. It was so sudden that a few seconds passed before she made that honest effort of will that was necessary to drive away the thought of him. When it was gone she felt more desperate than before. She went and stood at a window that looked over the square; it was past eleven o’clock in the morning, the day was rainy, and the square was almost empty. Three cabs were on the stand, and the huge umbrellas concealed the dozing cabmen. The horses in their shiny waterproofs hung their heads far down, as if they were contemplating their more or less broken knees, a melancholy sight indeed.
Here and there a stray pedestrian came in sight for a few moments, hurrying along by the wall and presently disappearing into a side street; a poor woman with a torn green shawl over her head dripping with water, a student with an umbrella and some books under his arm, a policeman in an indiarubber hood and cloak, a priest in a long black overcoat and shoes with silver buckles. He had no umbrella, and he made straight for one of the three cabs, diving in under the hood and apron withmore agility than dignity. Maria watched the dismal scene with a sort of depressed interest. Nothing made any difference, till she could see clearly what was right, for she was sure that the question of right and wrong was involved. Would it be wrong to pay no attention to her husband’s entreaty that the money should not be sent? Or would it be right? Or would it be neither, and yet be a mistake? She groped for some answer and could find none. She wanted some strong and energetic friend to help her, some one with decision and character, even if not very wise, some man who would fight for her or tell her how to defend herself.
She crossed the room and came back aimlessly, and looked out once more. Her husband would have told her that even if she could not be seen from below, a Roman lady must never look out of a window in town. She could hear him say it! But when she looked this time, another of the cabs was gone. Her old travelling clock on the writing-table struck eleven and chimed the quarter; she turned and looked at it, and her mind was made up. There was still one cab left on the stand, and there was still time. Three minutes later she was downstairs and under the dripping hood, with the leathern apron hooked up as high as her chin.
‘What address, Excellency?’ inquired the porter, respectfully.
‘The Capuchins, in Piazza Barberini.’
The porter repeated the words to the cabman in his sternest tones, as if he were ordering that her Excellencyshould be taken directly to prison, and the cab rumbled out from under the deep archway.
She was not going for the sake of confession, for she was not conscious of having anything on her conscience, but it would be just as well to go through what would be little more than a form, in order to ask what her duty was. That seemed to be the point. At a very critical juncture in her life she turned neither to Giuliana Parenzo, her intimate friend, nor to Don Ippolito Saracinesca; he was Montalto’s friend, and she could not put him in the position of advising her to do what was precisely contrary to her husband’s wishes; and, moreover, courageous as he was, she did not feel that he was a fighting man. She went to the grim, uncompromising old monk; according to his lights he would tell her what he thought, without the slightest regard for her feelings.
Maria would not have admitted that Montalto’s hesitation filled her with contempt. How could she despise the husband who overwhelmed her with undeserved kindness and almost fantastic generosity?
I once knew a most refined and cultivated epicure who sometimes felt an irresistible craving for a piece of coarse dry bread and a raw onion, and would go out secretly and buy those things, and eat them greedily in the privacy of his own dressing-room, after locking the door lest his own servant should catch him. I have also heard of women who would rather be beaten black and blue by their husbands than be treated with indifference.
At that juncture Maria’s conscience and heart craved stronger and rougher stuff than was to be found inher husband’s nervous and hesitating character. She wanted some one to direct her authoritatively, even rudely, and she went to the Capuchin because she recognised in him the born fighting man as well as the uncompromising ascetic. If he thought she ought to defend herself energetically, he would tell her that she must fight, or be guilty of the mortal sin of sloth; if he believed that mortification of the flesh was necessary to the salvation of her soul she was sure that he would order her to walk barefoot from Rome to Naples, and would be very much surprised if she objected to such a penance. He had not outlived the thirteenth century, in which his Order had been founded. What had been good for sinners then was excellent for them now. If civilisation was to extend to morality and change the soul’s requirements, then the Church must change too, and as this was manifestly impossible, the hypothesis was contrary to sense. His reasoning was sound, though his application of the truth he demonstrated was sometimes severe to the point of being quite impracticable. He shook his head, for instance, when he was told that various bacilli flourished on the pavement of his church, and that it was not hygienic for penitents to kiss the stones twenty-five times between the door and the altar rail. He said there had been no bacilli when he was young, and that the floor was swept every day.
Maria asked for Padre Bonaventura. The lay brother did not know whether he was in the monastery at that hour. Would he kindly go and ask? Certainly, but would the lady kindly give her name? Maria hesitated.
‘Please say that a Roman lady is here who confessed to him ten days ago, and also last May.
The lay brother hastened away, slapping the damp marble pavement with his wet sandals, and the Countess did not wait long. The monk appeared almost immediately, and went before her to a confessional box, just bending his head a little as he passed her, but not even glancing at her unveiled face. Her message had explained enough, and he had no wish to discover her identity. He probably thought she had already failed in her good resolution and had come to tell him so.
But he was mistaken; though he asked her several searching questions, she answered them all without hesitation, and then told him the story of the letters and spoke of her husband’s hesitations and of her own fears; and at last she put the case directly: Would it be wrong to act contrary to his expressed wish or not? That was what she had come to ask.
The monk was silent for a few moments, and then asked her a question in his harsh, unforgiving tone.
‘What is the character of the man who wrote those letters? Is he what is called a man of honour?’
Maria, on the other side of the perforated brass plate, straightened herself unconsciously as if she had been offended in the street.
‘He is brave and honourable,’ she answered proudly, after an instant.
‘Very well. I suppose he is a gentleman at large, a noble without occupation in life, is he not?’
‘On the contrary, he is an officer in active service.’
‘Very good. So much the better.’
She thought the old monk’s voice softened a little. She was quite sure it was less harsh. He had pronounced the words ‘a noble without occupation’ with an accent of profound contempt, and Maria did not see how the fact of being an officer in the Italian Army could be a recommendation in the eyes of a bare-footed friar whose political opinions might reasonably be thought to be those of Gregory Seventh or Pope Alexander Third. But Maria said nothing, and waited for another question. It came, in a kindly tone.
‘If you thought I could help you in your trouble, should you have any objection to telling me the officer’s name?’
Maria was so much surprised that she did not answer at once. In all her experience of confessors—and her life had brought her to many—none had ever inquired the name of any person she spoke of.
‘Not yours,’ the monk added, before she spoke. ‘I do not know who you are, and I never shall try to find out. But if you will tell me the name of the officer, I think I can help you, provided you will trust me. I cannot advise you to send money to the thief, any more than I can suggest any other plan of action for you. I can only offer my own help.’
‘But what can you do?’ Maria asked in a puzzled tone.
‘Have you finished your confession?’
‘Yes.’
‘Say the Act of Contrition.’
Maria obeyed, and immediately the monk pronounced the words of absolution. When all was finished, and after a short pause, he spoke again.
‘This matter on which you have consulted me has nothing to do with the confessional,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to go and sit down quietly for a few minutes and think it over. I will wait in the chapel, by the door of the sacristy. If you decide to trust me, come back and tell me the officer’s name and give me some address where I may find him, for I must see him alone. If you decide not to do this, you need only leave the church without coming back to me. I shall understand.’
‘Yes. Thank you. I will go and collect my thoughts.’
She rose, went to a little distance, and sat down on a straw chair. It was all very strange, but the stern old Capuchin inspired her with respect and confidence. She could trust him at least not to lead her into doing anything wrong, and if it were not wrong that he should go from her to the man she loved, she could allow herself to believe that a sort of link was made which was better than utter estrangement. Even that did not seem to be quite without danger, but the monk was there between them, austere and unforgiving. She left her chair very soon and went back to the chapel, where he was kneeling on the step of the altar. As she came near he rose slowly to his feet, and she looked at his face attentively for the first time. He had a rough-hewn head, with great gaunt features that made her think of an old eagle. She came to him, and looked up trustfully as she spoke.
‘His name is Baldassare del Castiglione, and he is a captain in the Piedmont Lancers. I do not know where he lives.’
‘I can get his address from the barracks. Will you come here to-morrow evening, towards twenty-three o’clock or half-past?’
‘Yes, I will be here. Thank you.’
She had a very vague idea as to what time twenty-three o’clock might be, for she belonged to the younger generation, and she was going to ask him to tell her, but he left her without waiting for her to speak again, and disappeared into the sacristy.
As she went out of the church she heard the midday gun, and all the bells began to ring. It was still raining, and she trod daintily and packed herself into the dripping cab and went home, wondering whether any woman she knew had lived a life so strange as hers, or had ever accepted help from such an unlikely quarter.
After all, it was but to wait one day more, and that would be the fourth, and the draft could still reach Palermo in time.
On the following morning Castiglione’s orderly had a severe shock. The Captain had been in the saddle early, and hard at work, and as it had rained heavily on the previous day and night, he and his charger had come in looking as if they had taken a mud-bath together. If Castiglione had known Greek, he might have thought of Hector declining Hecuba’s invitation to go up and pray at the temple of Zeus, on the ground that he was not fit to be seen. The orderly was doing what he could for boots and breeches when the bell rang. He opened the door and beheld an old Capuchin monk whose gaunt head towered far above his own. But this was not what surprised him, for mendicant brothers and nuns of various charitable Orders came at intervals to ask for alms at every landing of the apartment house. When Castiglione was in, he gave them a few pennies; his chum rarely gave anything. To-day Castiglione was at home and his friend was out; this meant pennies.
‘I will ask the Captain,’ said the trooper civilly, leaving the door open and turning to go into the sitting-room.
Then came the shock.
‘Excuse me, but I wish to see the Conte del Castiglione on private business,’ said the monk.‘Be good enough to give him my card.’
Now the trooper was a young man who came of decent people in Umbria, and had been brought up in the fear of God, and went to hear a mass now and then on a Sunday when he had time. But the idea that a bare-footed friar could ever, under any conceivable circumstances, have private business with an officer of the Piedmont Lancers had never presented itself to him. He stood staring at the card like an idiot.
‘That is my name,’ the monk said impatiently. ‘Padre Bonaventura of the Capuchins.’
‘I can read,’ answered the orderly, offended.
‘But apparently,’ retorted the monk, ‘you cannot walk. Now take my card to the Captain, and say that I must see him on private business of the utmost importance to him, and at once. Right about face, march!’
The order was delivered in such a commanding tone, and with such a military air, that the trooper obeyed mechanically, swung round on his heels, and tramped into the sitting-room with the card and the message, shutting the door behind him. When he reappeared a moment later, he left it open, stood at attention while the monk went in, and then shut it after him. He returned to his master’s boots fully resolved to play at the public lottery with the numbers corresponding to ‘Capuchin,’ ‘officer,’ and ‘surprise’ in the Book of Dreams, which contains the correct numbers for everything under the sun except winning.
The sunshine was streaming into the sitting-room when Padre Bonaventura entered, and Castiglione stood nearthe door to receive him, in slippers and a brown dressing-gown of nearly the same colour as his visitor’s frock.
‘As your business is urgent, Father, you will excuse my appearance,’ he said politely, but with distinct coldness, for he was almost as much surprised as his orderly had been. ‘May I ask what brings you to see me?’
Padre Bonaventura looked round the room, and then at Castiglione.
‘Shall we be interrupted here?’ he inquired. ‘My errand is very private.’
Castiglione’s bright blue eyes scrutinised the monk’s great head and eagle features. Being tolerably satisfied that the man was a genuine Capuchin and not a disguised thief, he opened the door and called to his orderly.
‘Let no one come in,’ he said, and he came back at once.
The two sat down on straight chairs by a table and looked at each other.
‘I come to you on behalf of a Roman lady,’ the monk began.
‘A lady!’
Castiglione moved and his face hardened at once. He thought he had been mistaken after all, and that his visitor was some scoundrel in disguise, whom he should presently throw downstairs or hand over to the police.
‘I do not know her name,’ continued Padre Bonaventura with perfect calm. ‘She only told me yours yesterday. She has been to confess to me three times since last May. She is in great danger and you must help her.’
A romantic foreigner might have scented some strangemystery of the imaginary Italian life described by English poets. Castiglione, who knew his own country well, only suspected that a fraud was being attempted, with a view to extracting money from him; or else that the monk was the ignoble emissary of some one of the fair and free who live between two worlds and feed the altar of Ashtaroth with human sacrifice.
‘Unless you can be more explicit,’ he said coldly, ‘I shall not listen to any more of this.’
An angry light came into the old Capuchin’s deep-set eyes, for he understood what Castiglione was thinking. But he checked the retort and told the facts quickly.
‘The lady has seven letters written to her by you during last April and May.’
The soldier’s manner changed instantly.
‘Have you come from her to bring them back to me, Father?’ he asked sadly.
‘No. They were stolen by a steward, photographed, and returned. The man has absconded, and he, or his accomplices, demand a hundred and fifty thousand francs; if the money is not paid in four days, the letters will be published here and in Naples.’
‘Not if I am alive,’ said Castiglione, whose face was not good to see just then, though he sat quite quietly in his chair.
Padre Bonaventura was so much pleased with this answer that he actually smiled. It was rather a grim performance of its kind, but it was unmistakably meant to express satisfaction. The Captain had turned out to be the sort of man he had hoped to find.
‘May I say a few words more?’ he asked.
‘Certainly. I must have more details. Does her husband know of this?’
The Capuchin told him the story as he had heard it from Maria’s lips, omitting nothing. He had an extremely good memory. Castiglione noted the names to which the drafts were to be addressed. Padre Bonaventura pointed out that it would be worse than useless to pay the money for reproductions which could be multiplied and used to extort more.
‘Is that all, Father?’ asked Castiglione.
‘I have a word to say, Captain,’ returned the monk, ‘first as one man to another, and then as a priest. So far as the one is concerned we shall agree, for you are evidently a man of honour; as for the rest, I presume your views about priests are those of most young military men.’
‘They are,’ Castiglione admitted.
‘That being the case, we shall probably not agree. But as you, when under orders, would do your duty in your profession, so I must do mine.’
‘That is just. Pray speak freely.’
‘As one man to another, I only have to say what I see you already understand. You wrote those letters to a married woman. She should have burnt them, it is true; but she did not. If she is compromised by the consequences, the fault is ultimately yours. If there is a breath upon her honour, there will be a stain on yours.’
‘You put things plainly, for a priest,’ said Castiglione.
‘In that, I do not speak as a monk, but as a man, Captain.’
‘And very much like a soldier. What you say is true, and I shall act with the conviction that my own honour is in danger.’
‘It is not every man that would do that,’ said the monk thoughtfully. ‘Most of you, in your class, would say that the fault was the lady’s in keeping dangerous letters, not yours in writing them. I come to the second point.’
‘You have something to say from the point of view of religion, I understand,’ said Castiglione gravely. ‘I shall listen with respect, though I may not agree with you.’
‘Thank you. In an affair of this kind an officer may always be placed in such a position as to believe it his duty to fight a duel.’
‘With an absconding steward and a blackmailer?’ Castiglione smiled.
‘No. With the lady’s husband or brother.’
‘Nothing could be more utterly unlikely in this case.’
‘Nevertheless, as a priest, and because I have been the means of inciting you to action, I ask you to give me your word that you will not be led into a duel.’
‘I cannot promise that,’ answered Castiglione. ‘That is a question about which a priest and a soldier cannot possibly agree. Forgive me for saying that you know no more of my profession than I do of yours, Father.’
‘Perhaps. But you may be wrong.’
The old man turned back the left sleeve of his looseand threadbare brown frock. Castiglione started slightly as he looked, for the monk’s arm was gone.
‘I left it at Aspromonte, in the sleeve of a red shirt,’ he said quietly, ‘and I was in orders already. I made submission afterwards. Perhaps a priest and a soldier may yet agree.’
Castiglione held out his hand across the table, and Padre Bonaventura took it frankly.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Captain. ‘I can promise an old soldier what I would never promise a priest. I do not foresee any chance of a duel, but if the possibility of one arises, I will do my very best to avoid it; I will go as far as I can without being a disgrace to the regiment.’
‘Thank you,’ answered the monk. ‘I know that is the most I can expect. As for what you are to do, I cannot advise you, for you know this modern world better than I. The lady will come late this afternoon to hear the result of the step I have taken.’
‘Tell her from me——’
‘Stop, Captain!’ The monk interrupted him sternly. ‘I will take no word from you to her. Whatever you choose to say, you say to me, and to me only.’
‘Yes—you are right. I repeat what I first said, then. The letters shall not be published while I am alive to hinder it. If there is any risk, it will not be in the way of a duel, so the one promise does not interfere with the other. When the matter is settled, shall I write to you or go and see you?’
‘In no case write,’ answered Padre Bonaventura.‘My share in this matter ends here, and I need neither hear from you nor see you again. If you do not find a way to make the publication of those letters impossible,’ he concluded, speaking slowly as he rose to his feet, ‘you are not the man I take you for.’
Castiglione smiled at the wholesale directness of the final speech, but only nodded in reply, and accompanied his visitor to the outer door with evident respect. Hearing steps, the orderly dropped the boots and sprang out of his little den.
‘Good-bye, Father, and thank you,’ said Castiglione, shaking his hand warmly.
The trooper could not believe his eyes and ears, and stood open-mouthed, grinning with astonishment. As the door closed, his master saw his face and felt a strong desire to box his ears. But the Captain’s character had changed a good deal of late.
He laid a heavy hand on the young soldier’s shoulder.
‘When you meet him again, salute him,’ he said sternly. ‘That old monk was with Garibaldi, and lost his left arm at Aspromonte.’
‘Yes, sir!’
Thereupon the orderly went back to the boots with a very grave face.
But Castiglione returned to the sitting-room and did not call his man for half an hour, during which time he dressed himself without the latter’s help, as he often did. It was noon when he went out, and the day was fine. Whatever he had determined to do, he was in no great hurry, for he strolled along at a leisurely pace, enjoyingthe sunshine and the bright air after the rain. But there was no hesitation as to the direction he meant to take, and he neither slackened his walk nor hastened it till he reached the door of the Marchesa di Parenzo’s pretty house, when it was a quarter-past twelve.
He asked if she were alone, and on being informed that she was, he told the man to inquire whether she could receive him for a few moments. She would guess well enough that only an important matter could bring him at such an hour. He found her in her sitting-room, for the elder boys had not come home from school and the smaller children were already at their dinner. As usual, she wore a wonderfully fitting frock, that looked as if it had just left the hands of a consummate artist, and an exquisite little pin, of a perfectly new design, fastened the tie which was in the fashion for women that winter.
‘I hope you will stay to luncheon,’ she said, as soon as they had shaken hands. ‘Sigismondo is coming, and there will be no one else but the boys.’
‘You are very kind, but I can only stay a few minutes,’ Castiglione answered, wondering how many of the women he knew would take the trouble to look their best merely for their husbands and their children. ‘I came to ask a question which may seem strange to you. Can you tell me anything about that steward of Montalto’s who has absconded?’
Giuliana’s quiet eyes examined his face attentively. The question was certainly not one to which she could object; but though she had always felt inclined to likehim, she had always disapproved of him, and she had distrusted his intentions towards Maria since he had returned to Rome. To the womanly woman he appealed as a particularly manly man; to the virtuous matron, far above the faintest breath of gossip, he represented the wicked and heartless tempter, going about to destroy.
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘I heard something about Orlando Schmidt yesterday. Teresa Crescenzi has a story, as usual. She says that he played in some place where there is a roulette and lost a great deal of money.’
‘Oh! That is interesting, if it is true. I wonder how she found it out.’
‘I have forgotten. I daresay she did not tell us. Sigismondo will remember the whole story, if you will only wait till he comes in.’
‘I’m sorry, but I cannot stay. Perhaps I had better go and ask Donna Teresa herself. Are you sure she did not tell you where the gambling den was?’
‘I think she mentioned Via Belsiana,’ answered the Marchesa, making an effort of memory. ‘For my part, I did not know that such places existed in Rome.’
‘At all events you have put me on the right track. Thank you very much, and good-bye.’
His visit had not lasted five minutes. He hailed a cab and drove to Teresa Crescenzi’s door, and asked to see her.
She also was very smartly dressed, but with less taste than the Marchesa. She was alone and was smoking a cigarette when Castiglione entered the little drawing-room of her apartment.
‘Do stay to luncheon,’ she cried, shaking hands effusively. ‘De Maurienne is coming, and there will be no one else! You know him, of course.’
‘Yes, I know de Maurienne,’ answered Castiglione, judging that the invitation was only meant to forestall any surprise on his part if the Frenchman appeared; ‘but I cannot stay to-day, thank you. I have come to you for some information, because you always know the truth about everything that happens, and when you are in a good humour you tell it.’
‘I am in a good humour,’ she laughed, and blew smoke towards him.
‘Where is that gambling den at which Montalto’s steward lost money before he decamped the other day?’
Again Teresa laughed and blew another little cloud at him.
‘Why do you ask me that?’
‘Perhaps I might be thinking of risking a little money at roulette myself,’ suggested Castiglione.
‘No,’ answered Teresa thoughtfully. ‘You are not that sort of man. Besides,’ she added with another laugh, ‘if you were, I would not be accessory to leading innocence astray. You must give some better reason. Are you playing detective for amusement? Are you trying to catch Orlando Schmidt?’
‘Oh, no!’ Castiglione spoke with perfect sincerity, and laughed in his turn.
‘What will you do for me if I tell you?’ inquired Teresa playfully.
‘Anything in reason, and honourable.’
‘Oh! You think I may be unreasonable and dishonourable!’
‘A woman’s idea of honour is not always the same as a man’s, you know!’
‘I should think not!’ cried Teresa fervently.
‘You see!’
‘You are a good swordsman, are you not, Balduccio?’
‘Fair. Why do you ask?’
‘Perhaps, if you would agree to fight a little duel for me—only if it were necessary—I might tell you what you are so anxious to know!’
‘At my age, and in my regiment, we do not fight duels except for very grave reasons,’ answered Castiglione.
‘Only a little innocent encounter,’ laughed Teresa. ‘Just to scratch a man’s hand or arm! What is that for a brave man and a good swordsman like you? Besides, I have made up my mind. I was only joking at first, but since you do not like the idea, I refuse to tell you what you wish to know. I have stated my condition, and you won’t accept it. I believe you’re afraid!’
‘Really!’ exclaimed Castiglione, beginning to be seriously annoyed.
‘Oh, no! It is of no use to argue! That or nothing! Either you are afraid, or you are not! I call you a coward!’
She turned away to throw the end of her cigarette into the fireplace. Castiglione moved and saw Monsieur de Maurienne, who had entered unannounced in time to hear the last words. Teresa had seen him, too.
‘I fear I am intruding, Madame,’ he said stiffly, and he bowed a little to them both.
He was a middle-sized and slightly built man of thirty-five, with somewhat intellectual features; he had soft brown hair and moustaches and he wore glasses. What he said was warranted by the tone of mingled irritation and contempt, in which Teresa had spoken, even more than by the words, since some women think themselves privileged to insult men. But Teresa held out her hand to him.
‘Intruding? My dear friend, what an idea! You have come just at the right moment! Balduccio said something to me which I shall certainly not repeat, and I told him he was a coward. That is all. It is of no consequence!’
De Maurienne looked at Castiglione for some explanation, and evidently expecting one, but the officer was going away without giving one, which was probably his best course.
‘That is what it means to be an unprotected woman!’ cried Teresa, in a tone that announced approaching tears.
‘What do you mean, Donna Teresa?’ asked Castiglione sternly, turning back as he spoke.
‘What right have you to come and say such insulting things to me? In my own house, with no one to defend me!’ She was sobbing now, though there was a marked deficiency of tears. ‘Go!’ she almost screamed. ‘Go, I say! Never speak to me again!’
‘I can only believe you are quite mad,’ said Castiglione coldly.
Thereupon he bowed and went out. He had left the apartment and was slowly descending the marble stairs when he heard quick footsteps behind him. He stopped, looked up, and saw de Maurienne coming down; he knew what that meant, and waited.
‘This cannot end here, sir,’ said the Frenchman.
‘It must,’ returned Castiglione with great emphasis. ‘I see that you wish to call me to account, but I assure you that nothing will induce me to fight about such a matter.’
‘Nothing, sir?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Then I have the honour to suggest that the lady had some ground for the assertion she made, sir.’ The Frenchman spoke quietly and coolly.
Castiglione’s blue eyes blazed and his throat grew very red above the line of his military collar. By a tremendous effort of will he controlled his hands.
‘You are mistaken, sir,’ he said in a rather thick tone.
‘In any case I am at your disposal,’ returned de Maurienne with contempt. ‘I shall be at home after five o’clock and shall not go out again. Good morning.’
‘Good morning.’
Castiglione breathed more freely in the street. The whole affair was utterly incomprehensible to him, for he was not clever enough to guess that Teresa Crescenzi had long nourished the hope of making Monsieur de Maurienne fight a duel for her as the surest means of forcing him to marry her afterwards, and that Castiglione’s unexpected appearance and the turn the interviewhad taken had afforded her the very opportunity she desired. After he had left the room it had been the affair of an instant to tell de Maurienne that the officer had brutally insulted her by a coarse allusion to her intimacy with de Maurienne himself.
As Castiglione walked down the street, his eyes still on fire and his neck still very red, he asked himself how far he was bound to keep his word to Padre Bonaventura. After all, no one would ever connect a quarrel between him and de Maurienne in Teresa Crescenzi’s drawing-room with Maria Montalto. Yet, in plain fact, the quarrel was the result of the very first step he had taken on Maria’s behalf. He must either fight or leave the regiment, unless de Maurienne would retract his words.
The work of the last half-hour had not been very successful, but he had got a clue from Giuliana Parenzo which was better than nothing at all, for he had already made up his mind as to the course Schmidt must have taken when he found himself in difficulties.
He soon recovered his self-possession, and presently he strolled into the officers’ club. It was almost deserted at that hour, for there was then no regular kitchen connected with it. He went straight to the writing-room, meaning to write a note to his colonel, for he knew that in such a case it would be best to lay the matter before him and a council of officers at once, and, in spite of his great anxiety for Maria, it was absolutely necessary to give precedence to the affair of honour. The reputation of the regiment was at stake.
A young subaltern of another regiment was sitting atone of the tables with a sheet of paper before him, on which he had written a few words, but he had apparently not been able to get any further, and was glowering at the opposite wall, the picture of despair. He rose hastily on seeing a superior officer enter, and Castiglione nodded to him familiarly and sat down not far away. But he, too, had some difficulty in composing his note, and as he looked round in search of a word, he met the young lieutenant’s eyes gazing at him with an imploring expression. The boy was the son of a former colonel of the Piedmont Lancers who had been promoted, but had lost most of his fortune nearly at the same time. The youth’s allowance was small, therefore, and it was known that he played too high. Castiglione had a sudden inspiration.
‘What is the matter?’ he asked kindly. ‘You seem to be in trouble. Can I help you?’
The young fellow flushed and sat up straight.
‘Oh, no, Captain! Thank you very much indeed, but I should not dare——’
‘Have you lost money again?’ asked Castiglione, in the same friendly tone.
‘Only five hundred. But you know how it is—we young ones in the regiment never have any cash, you see——’
‘I will help you this time,’ said the elder man. ‘But only on one condition.’
The lieutenant was overwhelmed with gratitude.
‘Oh, how kind you are!’ he cried.‘Anything—I can repay the money next week——’
‘Nonsense. You will return it when you have it. The condition is that you take my advice.’
‘And give up playing altogether! Yes, I know I should, but I cannot promise that.’ His face fell again.
‘No, don’t promise me anything. Promise yourself, as a man, that you will never play for more than you have in your pocket. Here are the five hundred francs.’
He put the notes into an envelope, rose, and handed them to the delighted boy. Not knowing what might happen in the course of the day, he had taken all of his not very large store of cash with him.
‘I shall ask you a little service in my turn,’ he said, interrupting his young friend’s voluble thanks. ‘I do not go to gambling-houses myself, but for a strong reason I want the exact address of one which is said to exist in Via Belsiana. Do you happen to remember it?’
‘The one that has a little door opening on the street, with a foreign doctor’s door-plate over the bell? Is that the one?’
‘Is there any other in the same street?’
‘None that I know of. Of course, one goes there in civilian’s clothes, and it is open after three in the afternoon, though there are never many people there till later. The password is made up of three numbers, twenty-six, eight, seventeen. Say that to the man at the door and he will let you in.’
Castiglione smiled.
‘You seem to know all about it,’ he said.‘That must be the one. If I were you I would not go to such places. Do you remember the number?’
The young lieutenant remembered it only too well, and gave it glibly.
‘You will never tell anybody that I’ve been there, will you, Captain?’ he added.
‘Certainly not! It is no business of mine, but I advise you to give it up.’
Castiglione destroyed the note he had begun to write and went away, delighted with himself, and almost forgetting de Maurienne and Teresa Crescenzi. He looked at his watch. It was now one o’clock. The gambling den did not open till three, but he would have to go home to change his clothes. What he hoped for was that he might find the proprietor in the house before its clients were admitted. The interview might be a long one, but it was important that the right person should be altogether at Castiglione’s disposal while it lasted, and that the place should be quiet. Between three and five there would be plenty of time to find his colonel and to procure two brother officers to see him through the affair.
He had never fought a duel, but was not much disturbed by the prospect of one, though an ordinary encounter with sabres is a much more serious matter in Italy than in France or Germany. He had never had a quarrel, because he was not the sort of man whom most people cared to meddle with, and also because the life he had led for so many years had never brought him into trouble. A man who does not excite the jealousy of other men, who pays his debts, helps his friends when he can and never asks for help, may easily spend his life in the Italian Army without ever being called out.