CHAPTER XVITHE SECOND COMING OF UGO KLUN
“I havetold you, excellency, how it was that I myself knew of the Count’s wish with regard to Christine. Yet I was careful to keep my counsel, and I found to my content that no one in the château looked for any early surprise. Some there were, indeed, to shake their heads and pray for the conversion of the little one; others said: ‘She amuses the Lord Count, and by-and-bye he will send her to her home again.’ The priest rarely spoke of the matter, but busied himself the more with the education of his pupil. He, too, may have deceived himself with the hope that his master would soon shake off the infatuation. I alone knew how close to the heart of the man the child had crept; how, loving her not from any desire of possession, he had found in her the satisfying sweetness of a gentle womanhood, and had learnt swiftly to lay down the heavy burdens of his life in her company.
“‘Christine,’ he would say, and she herself told me of this, ‘you never think of Zlarin now?’
“‘Madonna mia, I think of it often, dear friend. It is difficult to forget the past when we have suffered. But oh, I will; it cannot hurt me here!’
“She was sitting at his feet before the great fire in his room when he said this; and now she crept close to him and laid her head upon his knees, thinking that the haven of her safety was in his embrace. He, in turn, fell to stroking her hair very gently, and presently he bent down and kissed her.
“‘As you say, little one, it cannot hurt you here. It shall be my business that it does not. Has the priest been filling your head with his nonsense again? A pest upon his tongue!’
“‘No,’ she said, looking into the fire thoughtfully, ‘it is not that, signor’—she called him signor often, still fearing him in her own childish way—‘he is too busy teaching me my ignorance of the present to think about my past. He is sure that you will come to the confessional before Easter is done. That is hisfirst word in the morning and his last word at night. “Pray for him always,” he says.’
“She stopped suddenly, conscious that she had spoken all her thoughts, and that he was very serious.
“‘But I cannot do it,’ she added presently, in the hope of correcting the impression; ‘that is to say, I cannot pray to lead you, signor, but only that you may lead me always, and that I may obey and love—oh, God knows how I pray to love and thank you!’
“She raised her pretty face to his, and he took her close in his arms, feeling that her big black eyes looked him through and through. It was the soul of the child that spoke, the soul pulsating with love and gratitude and strange hopes. She had found her city, excellency, but it lay in the heart of the man.
“‘Christine,’ said the Count presently, for her words had set him thinking, ‘it is good for a woman to keep her faith, though that faith is best which can say: “I believe in right and wrong, and in God, since I know this distinction.” These priests do well when they bring Christ down into the homes of men; they waste their time when they have nothing butthe hereafter upon their tongues. God of my soul, there is more religion in a crust of bread thrown to a hungry man than in all the sermons that man has preached! And there is more truth in a word of sympathy to him that needs it than in all the catechisms of the Churches. That is my creed, child. I need no other—and no prayers—while I live by it. But you, little one, it is good for you to believe what you do, and you may pray for me always as the priest bids you.’
“She mused some time upon his words, and he, avoiding further talk upon a subject which rarely drew a word from him, turned to other things.
“‘Himmel, pretty one,’ said he, ‘this is no refectory for monkish talk. Let me look into your eyes and see what I can read there.’
“She turned her face to him, and it was alight with laughter.
“‘Oh, surely,’ said he, holding her face between his hands, ‘I read many things here—and first a question. You would ask me when I go to Vienna—am I right, sweetheart?’
“‘There was talk of that in the house to-day, signor, and they said that you went in PassionWeek, and that the year would be nearly run before you came back.’
“‘They said that? Heaven, what chatterers! To-morrow I will put plaisters on their tongues. You did not believe the tale?’
“‘I believe nothing but that which you tell me.’
“‘And if I stayed away until the year had run?’
“‘Oh, I would wait and think always, and run every morning to the Jajce road and say: “To-day he will come back to me!”’
“‘You would like to go to Vienna, Christine?’
“‘Oh, I have no thought. When I was a child it seemed to me that they had carried me out of the world, and that somewhere, far off, there was a great city in which all the happiness and all the love of the world lay. Every day I used to say to myself: “God will take me across the mountains, and I shall hear and see the things of which I dream.” I thought that there would be no night then, and that none would starve and none be poor, and that golden clouds would shine down upon us from the sky.Madonna mia, what a silly dream it was! Yet I had none to tell me of my fault.Now I think of it no longer; I have no wish. The past is all a shadow.’
“The Count, watching her keenly as her torrent of words was poured out, did not answer her at once, but holding both her hands in his, he fell to asking himself what the capital would say if he took there as his wife this little barbarian, so simple, in many ways so ignorant, yet so powerful to hold the heart and win the love of men. He could not hide from himself the fact that the whole city would find merriment in the discovery—yet that to him personally was of the smallest concern. It was his joy always to trample upon the conceits and opinions which stood between him and his few pleasures. Had there been any motive for his pride to lead him, he would have been found among the chiefs of Austria long ago. But for twenty years he had looked at life through the glasses of his irony and contempt, and had scorned the ambition of place as the ambition of fools. Now, however, he began to regard things from a new point of view. He remembered the conventions of men, not for his own sake, but for the sake of Christine. There were moments when he could scarce believe thatthis dark-eyed little Italian had really entered into his life so entirely that the world was empty for him when he did not hear her voice. ‘She shall never be the sport of fools,’ he said, ‘but shall find a home here. Let them laugh themselves hoarse—but I will cut out the tongue of any man that insults her. She has the gentleness of a child and the grace of ten women who prate of birth.’
“This was his reasoning while she sat at his knees in the great vaulted library, and the light of the fire shone red and golden upon her face. But he hid from her much of that which was in his mind.
“‘Some day, Christine,’ he said, ‘we will go and see your great city together—but not yet. To-morrow I leave you; but when I come back, in twenty days’ time, you shall be alone no more. You still wish it, little one?’
“Excellency, he had his answer as a man loves best to have it—sealed upon his lips, without any witness of word or promise.
“The Count left for Vienna on the first day of Passion Week. Though he had made no declaration of his intention, a rumour of things was abroad in the château, and the wholehousehold was alive with expectation. It was wonderful to see the awakening of those who for ten years and more had walked through life under a burden of sleep. Painters came from Jajce to clean the time-stained rooms. Carpets arrived in waggons from Serajevo. A great dressmaker from Pesth was busy with his fine stuffs and embroidery. Dame Theresa stitched all day, or raved at the maids. The grooms dragged out forgotten coaches from the sheds and sent them to the wheelwright. There were ladders and buckets and beaters in every room. You heard the sound of merry singing in the corridors; bright faces met you in the park. Christine became at once the object of a slavish attention. ‘The Lord Count has wished it,’ were the words on every tongue. The priest alone kept his gloomy voice and muttered his gloomy warnings.
“Spring was early to come that year, excellency. The snow sank through the mountains when March was young, and we gathered violets in the bowers of the park while the Church was still telling us to fast. It was good to see Jajce shining white and glorious in her cup of the hills; good to see the little waves lapping inthe lake, and to hear the droning thunders of the Plevna. No more was there danger lurking in the pass. We walked as we listed in the woods and on the heights. Bears gambolled on the sward between the thickets; the wolf hid himself in the depths of the glades. For myself, I felt that twenty years of life had been given to me. The mountain air breathed strength into my lungs. The winds of the hills were iron to my veins. I lived in a garden of dreams, and said surely that the good God was mocking me.
“The Count had left us in Passion Week, but we looked for his return at Low Sunday, and worked the harder to have all things in readiness for him. As for Christine herself, no word of mine could convey a sense of her content and her pleasure. It was more and more astonishing to see, as the days went on, how that little vagrant of the hills began to ape the airs and manners of the fine lady, yet with so gentle a grace that none had offence of it. Eight months of the priest’s books and teaching—added to that she had learnt of me and in the school at Zlarin—had done much for one to whom dignity came as an inheritance, and fine bearing as a birthright. I said it always,and I say it now, that my child was willed by God to sit at the feet of princes. For this was her destiny, and to this destiny was carrying her, as I have told.
“They made her fine dresses, excellency, and the greatcostumiersclapped their hands when they saw her pretty face, declaring that her figure would have touched the heart of Worth himself. She let them work their will, displaying little of a woman’s joy at the silver and the gold and the embroidery, but glad always that so great a gulf now lay between her and her poverty. Strange the fact may be, yet her new state sat more easily upon her than the vagrant life of the island. The instinct of imitation was strong in her. Once she had seen a thing done, she never forgot how to do it herself. Father Mark declared that an apter pupil had never come to him. She could patter in German in three months; she spoke it with some fluency in six. As a musician she had ever great gifts, and she could get music out of a crazy old fiddle which would set a cripple leaping to the dance. The greater opportunities of her new position robbed her neither of her simplicity nor of her pretty ways of thought.She cared nothing for the tinsel of her frocks, but was glad that fine linen covered her limbs. She put no other value upon jewels beyond the message of love they bore her. Every day while the Lord Count was away in the capital she would ride out upon the Jajce road to fetch the letters he had promised her. I know that she prayed for hours in the chapel, asking the Blessed Virgin and the Saints’ intercession for him she loved. Nothing could come between them now, she thought.Diavolo!if she had foreseen!
“She continued in this pleasant occupation until the week in which Count Paul was to come home again. As the great day approached, she would ride out towards the town more frequently, thinking perchance that the master would surprise us. It was upon such an excursion as this, excellency, that she was brought face to face with the great moment of her life. Though there be many years which I must still live, never may I forget that day of bitterness and of woe. Heaven is my witness that the words in which I tell of it burn my lips. Yet you have asked me for the story of Christine, and I will withhold no page of it.
“She had run down to the great white road, and was standing at the summit of the hill whence Jajce and the fall of the waters is clearly to be observed. The hour was the hour of sunset, and the whole gorge below her shone blood-red and glittering. She could see the white track running like the marrow of the pass, now between, now at the foot of, the surpassingly green hills; the river itself was bubbling over with white waves; the smoke of the hamlets made canopies in the sky. But her thoughts were not for such things as these. She had eyes only for the road; ears open only to the sound of bells and the ring of hoofs. A Turk passed her, his lean pony weighed down with a burden of meal and maize, but she did not notice his salutation; a Bashi-Bazouk rode by, his belt full of knives and pistols in his holster, but she was unconscious of his presence. The white road to Jajce—the path by which her master would come—there was her mind and her heart.
“‘To-morrow,’ she said; ‘he will come to-morrow. Holy Virgin, send him to take me in his arms! Oh, surely he will be here at sunset.’
“She had a rosary in her hand, and she began to finger the beads quickly. Long she stood, never moving her eyes from the silver track in the valley; the sun sank behind a peak of the hills, and she watched yet and waited. Only when the gorge began to be hidden by the mists, and dark veiled the distant town, did she turn swiftly to run back to the great house and to the new surprises she expected there.
“Excellency, it was then that she saw her husband.
“He had been hiding in the bushes of the thicket upon her right hand, and had watched her for a space while she counted her beads and muttered prayers for the Count’s return. But now he sprang out, and clutched her by the arm, swinging her round roughly, so that he brought her face to face with him. He wore the same clothes in which he had gone with her to the hut of Orio; but the breeches were black with dirt, the high boots were cracked and rotting, the green jacket was torn and wanted buttons. Though his face was no longer pinched with want, and he had shaved off the stubble of beard, nevertheless he was but a shadow of the Ugo who had loved Christine atZlarin. She saw that his eyes were bright as the eyes of one who wakes to fever; his left arm was bandaged and hung limp by his side; his right hand gripped her flesh so that she could feel his fingers touching the bone. Yet no word of anger passed his lips; a smile that was half a sneer lighted up his pale features; an exclamation of pleasure escaped him when he saw that all the blood had run from the girl’s face, and that fear and agony of mind had made her dumb.
“‘Cospetto, little Christine,’ he cried, shaking her until he went near to wrenching the bone of her arm from its socket, ‘have you no word of welcome for me?’
“She answered him only with a low moan; she was praying in her heart that God would strike her dead at his feet. But to him her grief was so much for merriment and satisfaction.
“‘Maledetto, carissima,’ he went on, still clutching her arm, ‘is this the way you meet me? Ho, ho! I thought it would be so now that we had diamonds on our neck. Devil! to run to another man’s arms in the hour of my misfortune! But it is my turn now, little Christine. I have the priest’s writing in my pocket,and the writing of witnesses. You are my wife,carina, before God and men. See how I claim you!’
“He dragged her to him roughly, tearing the fine linen of her chemise. He had meant to make his embrace as loathsome to her as possible, for his hate of her waxed strong. There is no middle way for an Italian who loves, excellency—either a fierce consuming passion, burning the stronger in gratification, or a hatred which may never turn to love again. Ugo Klun had loved Christine well when he took her from Zlarin; but the thought that she had been in another man’s arms—for such was his belief—drove him to this madness. He swore that he would compel her to the very depths of suffering. She should work for him, slave for him, bear his embraces—the taste of riches she had known should be a life-long bitterness in her mouth. If she loved Count Paul of Jézero, so much the better. That would bring a speedier vengeance.
“‘See how I claim you,’ he repeated, pressing her against him in spite of her cry of pain and loathing—‘oh, we will have merry days, my Christine. I hurt you, little one? Nay,but I will hurt you the more yet! My face burns you?Diamine, that your fine clothes should have made your skin so soft! Oh, do not draw back,carina—though I have but one arm, see how easily it holds you—and your lips are very sweet.Benissimo, that they should be mine to kiss!’
“The man had the strength of a beast, and for some moments he held her in a grip like iron. When the pressure of his arm was relaxed she almost fell upon the road; but he still had her wrist, and he stood over her, mocking her until at last she found words to answer him.
“‘Ugo—oh, God be merciful—what shall I say to you? They told me you were dead. See how I suffer. Oh, blessed Mother of Christ, help me! Ugo, what harm have I done you?—oh, you tear my flesh! Ugo, let me speak—let me run back to the house that I may tell them—dear God, that I might die—my tears blind me.’
“‘Your tears blind you?’ cried he, savagely. ‘You thought that I was dead! That is well, since I live to tell you otherwise and to see you weep. Oh, surely this is a great day, little one,when you soil your fine clothes in the dust, and kneel to me for mercy. We will have many like it before the year is run! You shall cry every day to the Blessed Virgin, but she will not hear you,carissima. You shall work the flesh off those pretty arms, my wife, and yet shall have more to do. Run back to the house! I would cut your throat first!’
“He accompanied his words with a blow upon her pretty mouth, and as she moaned before him and shook with her sobs he continued:
“‘Aye, weep away, devil that you are, and may your eyes be blinded! That I should let you run back to him!Accidente!I count the hours until I meet him face to face! Do you hear, little one? May the day be soon when my hands shall be wet with his blood!Cospetto—I will tear his heart from his body and lay it on your cheek—your lover’s heart,Christina mia! Oh, we will have merry days, beloved—merry days! And you shall remember Jézero always. I swear it on the holy Cross. There shall be no hour of your life when you shall not think of it. It was good to love you,carissima, but it is better to hate. And I will hate well, the Virgin be my witness.’
“He pulled her to her feet again; but she stood before him now with dry eyes and burning cheeks. Never from the first had she doubted his right to do with her as he would—for a wife in Dalmatia is reckoned but little better than the beasts, and the dominion of the husband is the dominion of the master who commands the slave. She knew that the law of her Church and the law of her country would give her to him; yet even then she would have struggled to the end, would, perchance, have died at his feet, had he not threatened the man for whom she would have given her life so gladly. She said that, whatever suffering had been decreed for her, Count Paul should suffer nothing. She would endure any degradation, submit to all the man desired, if he who had loved her with so gentle a love might thereby be served. She blamed herself now that she had wept. She knew that she had need of all her courage. The Count’s life might depend upon her words.
“‘Ugo,’ she said, and there was decision in her voice, ‘what harm have I done you, or what wrong have you received at the Count’s hands? Such as I am he has made me. Youleft me in the mountains, and he gave me a home when no other would give me bread. For all that he has given he has asked nothing but my love, and he asked that because they told him you were dead. I know well that I stood with you before the altar at Incoronata. I was a child, and there was no one to tell me what marriage meant. Was it a sin that I wished to be your friend always? If that is so, am I not ready to repay? To-night I will go with you where you will. I will be your servant as you ask—the Holy Mother help me! I will be your wife. Only speak no harm of the Count—think none, or you will live to hate the day. God pity me!—I am a woman and my arm is weak. But I will find a way—and your words shall be bitter on your tongue, I promise it.’
“She had wrenched herself away from him now, and had she willed it, she could have run back to the house again. One thought alone—and this for the life of her master—chained her feet. There could be no safety for him, she said in her childish way, until she had gone out of his existence and submitted to the agony of the yoke she had put upon her neck. She mustgo away with Ugo Klun, and her tears must freeze in her heart. As for the man, there had been a second of time when the love he bore for her once had rushed back and almost compelled him to cry out to her for love in answer. But the mood passed swiftly. The devil in him whispered that she lied. He remembered that when he had watched her from the park, or had lurked in the gardens of the château at night, he had seen her held in the Count’s embrace. He said that she was the vagrant of the isle of Zlarin, and that such embraces could have but one meaning. He choked the temptation to relent, and turned upon her fiercely again.
“‘Cospetto, my little Christine,’ he cried at last, ‘there is the devil in your eyes! We shall have a merry day,carissima, and you shall repeat your pretty threats in my own house. How! you did not know that I had a house? Oh! but I will lead you there, and you shall tell me your tale again. Are there not some of your friends in the hollow yonder?Per Baccho, it is good to be a dead man when the hunt is out. And I have been dead three months,carina, as the corporal has told them. Oh,surely your eyes shine with love to see me come to life again!’
“It was as he said, excellency. Hans the steward was then coming up the Jajce road, and Christine, when she saw him, had the thought to raise her voice and cry for help. But the man was too quick for her, and of a sudden he gripped her arm again and dragged her into the thicket.
“‘Say one word,’ he snarled, ‘and I will bury my stiletto in your heart!’”