“You did neither the one nor the other, sir,” said Nino, boldly, “when you required of your daughter to marry such a man as Benoni.”
“I have just seen Benoni; I saw him also on the night you left me, madam,” — he looked severely at Hedwig,— “and I am reluctantly forced to confess that he is not sane, according to the ordinary standard of the mind.”
We had all known from the paper of the suspicion that rested on Benoni’s sanity, yet somehow there was a little murmur in the room when the old count so clearly stated his opinion.
“That does not, however, alter the position in the least,” continued Lira, “for you knew nothing of this at the time I desired you to marry him, and I should have found it out soon enough to prevent mischief. Instead of trusting to my judgment you took the law into your own hands, like a most unnatural daughter, as you are, and disappeared in the night with a man whom I consider totally unfit for you, however superior,” he added, glancing at Nino, “he may have proved himself in his own rank of life.”
Nino could not hold his tongue any longer. It seemed absurd that there should be a battle of words when all the realities of the affair were accomplished facts; but for his life he could not help speaking.
“Sir,” he said, addressing Lira, “I rejoice that this opportunity is given me of once more speaking clearly to you. Months ago, when I was betrayed into a piece of rash violence, for which I at once apologised to you, I told you under somewhat peculiar circumstances that I would yet marry your daughter, if she would have me. I stand here to-day with her by my side, my wedded wife, to tell you that I have kept my word, and that she is mine by her own free consent. Have you any cause to show why she is not my wedded wife? If so, show it. But I will not let you stand there and say bitter and undeserved things to this same wife of mine, abusing the name of father and the terms ‘authority’ and ‘love,’ forsooth! And if you wish to take vengeance on me personally, do so if you can. I will not fight duels with you now, as I was ready to do the day before yesterday. For then — so short a time ago — I had but offered her my life, and so that I gave it for her I cared not how nor when. But now she has taken me for hers, and I have no more right to let you kill me than I have to kill myself, seeing that she and I are one. Therefore, good sir, if you have words of conciliation to speak, speak them; but if you would only tell her harsh and cruel things, I say you shall not!”
As Nino uttered these hot words in good, plain Italian, they had a bold and honest sound of strength that was glorious to hear. A weaker man than the old count would have fallen into a fury of rage, and perhaps would have done some foolish violence. But he stood silent, eying his antagonist coolly, and when the words were spoken he answered.
“Signor Cardegna,” he said, “the fact that I am here ought to be to you the fullest demonstration that I acknowledge your marriage with my daughter. I have certainly no intention of prolonging a painful interview. When I have said that my child has disobeyed me, I have said all that the question holds. As for the future of you two, I have naturally nothing more to say about it. I cannot love a disobedient child, nor ever shall again. For the present, we will part; and if at the end of a year my daughter is happy with you, and desires to see me, I shall make no objection to such a meeting. I need not say that if she is unhappy with you my house will always be open to her, if she chooses to return to it.”
“No, sir, most emphatically, you need not say it!” cried Nino, with blazing eyes. Lira took no notice of him, but turned to go.
Hedwig would try once more to soften him, though she knew it was useless.
“Father,” she said, in tones of passionate entreaty, “will you not say you wish me well? Will you not forgive me?” She sprang to him and would have held him back.
“I wish you no ill,” he answered shortly, pushing her aside, and he marched to the door, where he paused, bowed as stiffly as ever, and disappeared.
It was very rude of us, perhaps, but no one accompanied him to the stairs. As for me, I would not have believed it possible that any human being could be so hard and relentlessly virtuous; and if I had wondered at first that Hedwig should have so easily made up her mind to flight, I was no longer surprised when I saw with my own eyes how he could treat her.
I cannot, indeed, conceive how she could have borne it so long, for the whole character of the man came out, hard, cold, and narrow, — such a character as must be more hideous than any description can paint it, when seen in the closeness of daily conversation. But when he was gone the sun appeared to shine again, as he had shone all day, though it had sometimes seemed so dark. The storms were in that little room.
As Lira went out, Nino, who had followed Hedwig closely, caught her in his arms, and once more her face rested on his broad breast. I sat down and pretended to be busy with a pile of old papers that lay near by on the table, but I could hear what they said. The dear children, they forgot all about me.
“I am so sorry, dear one,” said Nino soothingly.
“I know you are, Nino. But it cannot be helped.”
“But are you sorry, too, Hedwig?” he asked, stroking her hair.
“That my father is angry? Yes. I wish he were not,” said she, looking wistfully toward the door.
“No, not that,” said Nino. “Sorry that you left him, I mean.”
“Ah, no, I am not sorry for that. Oh, Nino, dear Nino, your love is best.” And again she hid her face.
“We will go away at once, darling,” he said, after a minute, during which I did not see what was going on. “Would you like to go away?”
Hedwig moved her head to say “Yes.”
“We will go, then, sweetheart. Where shall it be?” asked Nino, trying to distract her thoughts from what had just occurred. “London? Paris? Vienna? I can sing anywhere now, but you must always choose, love.”
“Anywhere, anywhere; only always with you, Nino, till we die together.”
“Always, till we die, my beloved,” he repeated. The small white hands stole up and clasped about his broad throat, tenderly drawing his face to hers, and hers to his. And it will be “always,” till they die together, I think.
This is the story of that Roman singer whose great genius is making such a stir in the world. I have told it to you, because he is my own dear boy, as I have often said in these pages; and because people must not think that he did wrong to carry Hedwig von Lira away from her father, nor that Hedwig was so very unfilial and heartless. I know that they were both right, and the day will come when old Lira will acknowledge it. He is a hard old man, but he must have some affection for her; and if not, he will surely have the vanity to own so famous an artist as Nino for his son-in-law.
I do not know how it was managed, for Hedwig was certainly a heretic when she left her father, though she was an angel, as Nino said. But before they left Rome for Vienna there was a little wedding, early in the morning, in our parish church, for I was there; and De Pretis, who was really responsible for the whole thing, got some of his best singers from St. Peter and St. John on the Lateran to come and sing a mass over the two. I think that our good Mother Church found room for the dear child very quickly, and that is how it happened.
They are happy and glad together, those two hearts that never knew love save for each other, and they will be happy always. For it was nothing but love with them from the very first, and so it must be to the very last. Perhaps you will say that there is nothing in this story either but love. And if so, it is well; for where there is naught else there can surely be no sinning, or wrongdoing, or weakness, or meanness; nor yet anything that is not quite pure and undefiled.
Just as I finish this writing, there comes a letter from Nino to say that he has taken steps about buying Serveti, and that I must go there in the spring with Mariuccia and make it ready for him. Dear Serveti, of course I will go.
THE END
An American Politician
CONTENTS
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Chapter XVI.
Chapter XVII.
Chapter XVIII.
Chapter XIX.
Chapter XX.
Chapter XXI.
Chapter XXII.
Chapter XXIII.
To My Dear Friend,
Elizabeth Christophers Hobson,
In Gratitude and Affection, I Dedicate This Story.
Constantinople,
October 7, 1884.
Chapter I.
MRS. SAM WYNDHAM was generally at home after five o’clock. The established custom whereby the ladies who live in Beacon Street all receive their friends on Monday afternoon did not seem to her satisfactory. She was willing to conform to the practice, but she reserved the right of seeing people on other days as well.
Mrs. Sam Wyndham was never very popular. That is to say, she was not one of those women who are seemingly never spoken ill of, and are invited as a matter of course, or rather as an element of success, to every dinner, musical party, and dance in the season.
Women did not all regard her with envy, all young men did not think she was capital fun, nor did all old men come and confide to her the weaknesses of their approaching second childhood. She was not invariably quoted as the standard authority on dress, classical music, and Boston literature, and it was not an unpardonable heresy to say that some other women might be, had been, or could be, more amusing in ordinary conversation. Nevertheless, Mrs. Sam Wyndham held a position in Boston which Boston acknowledged, and which Boston insisted that foreigners such as New Yorkers, Philadelphians and the like, should acknowledge also in that spirit of reverence which is justly due to a descent on both sides from several signers of the Declaration of Independence, and to the wife of one of the ruling financial spirits of the aristocratic part of Boston business.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Wyndham was about forty years of age, as all her friends of course knew; for it is as easy for a Bostonian to conceal a question of age as for a crowned head. In a place where one half of society calls the other half cousin, and went to school with it, every one knows and accurately remembers just how old everybody else is. But Mrs. Wyndham might have passed for younger than she was among the world at large, for she was fresh to look at, and of good figure and complexion. Her black hair showed no signs of turning gray, and her dark eyes were bright and penetrating still. There were lines in her face, those microscopic lines that come so abundantly to American women in middle age, speaking of a certain restless nervousness that belongs to them especially; but on the whole Mrs. Sam Wyndham was fair to see, having a dignity of carriage and a grace of ease about her that at once gave the impression of a woman thoroughly equal to the part she had to play in the world, and not by any means incapable of enjoying it.
For the rest, Mrs. Sam led a life very much like the lives of many rich Americans. She went abroad frequently, wandered about the continent with her husband, went to Egypt and Algiers, stayed in England, where she had a good many friends, avoided her countrymen and countrywomen when away from home, and did her duty in the social state to which she was called in Boston.
She read the books of the period, and generally pronounced them ridiculous; she believed in her husband’s politics, and aristocratically approved the way in which he abstained from putting theory into practice, from voting, and in a general way from dirtying his fingers with anything so corrupt as government, or so despicable as elections; she understood Boston business to some extent, and called it finance, but she despised the New York Stock Market and denounced its doings as gambling. She made fine distinctions, but she was a woman of sense, and was generally more likely to be right than wrong when she had a definite opinion, or expressed a definite dislike. Her religious views were simple and unobtrusive, and never changed.
Her custom of being at home after five o’clock was perhaps the only deviation she allowed herself from the established manners of her native city, and since two or three other ladies had followed her example, it had come to be regarded as a perfectly harmless idiosyncrasy for which she could not properly be blamed. The people who came to see her were chiefly men, except, of course, on the inevitable Monday.
A day or two before Christmas, then, Mrs. Sam Wyndham was at home in the afternoon. The snow lay thick and hard outside, and the sleigh bells tinkled unceasingly as the sleighs slipped by the window, gleaming and glittering in the deep red glow of the sunset. The track was well beaten for miles away, down Beacon Street and across the Milldam to the country, and the pavements were strewn with ashes to give a foothold for pedestrians.
For the frost was sharp and lasting. But within, Mrs. Wyndham sat by the fire with a small table before her, and one companion by her side, for whom she was pouring tea.
“Tell me all about your summer, Mr. Vancouver,” said she, teasing the flame of the spirit-lamp into better shape with a small silver instrument.
Mr. Pocock Vancouver leaned back in his corner of the sofa and looked at the fire, then at the window, and finally at his hostess, before he answered. He was a pale man and slight of figure, with dark eyes, and his carefully brushed hair, turning gray at the temples and over his forehead, threw his delicate, intelligent face into relief.
“I have not done much,” he answered, rather absently, as though trying to find something interesting in his reminiscences; and he watched Mrs. Wyndham as she filled a cup. He was not the least anxious to talk, it seemed, and he had an air of being thoroughly at home.
“You were in England most of the time, were you not?”
“Yes–I believe I was. Oh, by the bye, I met Harrington in Paris; I thought he meant to stay at home.”
“He often goes abroad,” said Mrs. Wyndham indifferently. “One lump of sugar?”
“Two, if you please–no cream–thanks. Does he go to Paris to convert the French, or to glean materials for converting other people?” inquired Mr. Vancouver languidly.
“I am sure I cannot tell you,” answered the lady, still indifferently. “What do you go to Paris for?”
“Principally to renew my acquaintance with civilized institutions and humanizing influences. What does anybody go abroad for?”
“You always talk like that when you come home, Mr. Vancouver,” said Mrs. Wyndham. “But nevertheless you come back and seem to find Boston bearable. It is not such a bad place after all, is it?”
“If it were not for half a dozen people here, I would never come back at all,” said Mr. Vancouver. “But then, I am not originally one of you, and I suppose that makes a difference.”
“And pray, who are the half dozen people who procure us the honor of your presence?”
“You are one of them, Mrs. Wyndham,” he answered, looking at her.
“I am much obliged,” she replied, demurely. “Any one else?”
“Oh–John Harrington,” said Vancouver with a little laugh.
“Really?” said Mrs. Wyndham, innocently; “I did not know you were such good friends.”
Mr. Vancouver sipped his tea in silence for a moment and stared at the fire.
“I have a great respect for Harrington,” he said at last. “He interests me very much, and I like to meet him.” He spoke seriously, as though thoroughly in earnest. The faintest look of amusement came to Mrs. Wyndham’s face for a moment.
“I am glad of that,” she said; “Mr. Harrington is a very good friend of mine. Do you mind lighting those candles? The days are dreadfully short.”
Pocock Vancouver rose with alacrity and performed the service required.
“By the way,” said Mrs. Wyndham, watching him, “I have a surprise for you.”
“Indeed?”
“
Yes, an immense surprise. Do you remember Sybil Brandon?”
“Charlie Brandon’s daughter? Very well–saw her at Newport some time ago. Lily-white style–all eyes and hair.”
“You ought to remember her. You used to rave about her, and you nearly ruined yourself in roses. You will have another chance; she is going to spend the winter with me.”
“Not really?” ejaculated Mr. Vancouver, in some surprise, as he again sat down upon the sofa.
“Yes; you know she is all alone in the world now.”
“What? Is her mother dead too?”
“She died last spring, in Paris. I thought you knew.”
“No,” said Vancouver, thoughtfully. “How awfully sad!”
“Poor girl,” said Mrs. Wyndham; “I thought it would do her good to be among live people, even if she does not go out.”
“When is she coming?” There was a show of interest about the question. “She is here now,” answered Mrs. Sam.
“Dear me!” said Vancouver. “May I have another cup?” His hostess began the usual series of operations necessary to produce a second cup of tea.
“Mrs. Wyndham,” began Vancouver again after a pause, “I have an idea–do not laugh, it is a very good one, I am sure.”
“I am not laughing.”
“Why not marry Sibyl Brandon to John Harrington?”
Mrs. Wyndham stared for a moment.
“How perfectly ridiculous!” she cried at last.
“Why?”
“They would starve, to begin with.”
“I doubt it,” said Vancouver.
“Why, I am sure Mr. Harrington never had more than five thousand a year in his life. You could not marry on that, you know–possibly.”
“No; but Miss Brandon is very well off–rich, in fact.”
“I thought she had nothing.”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 111