Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  The illness ran its course. While it continued Lamberti went every other day to the Palazzo Massimo and told the two ladies of Guido’s state. He and Cecilia looked at each other silently, but she never showed that she wished to be alone with him, and he made no attempt to see her except in her mother’s presence. Both felt that Guido was dying, and knew that they had some share in his sufferings. As soon as the Countess learned that the danger was real she gave up all thought of leaving Rome, and there was no discussion about it between her and her daughter. She was worldly and often foolish, but she was not unkind, and she had grown really fond of Guido since the spring. So they waited for the turn of the illness, or for its sudden end, and the days dragged on painfully. Lamberti was as lean as a man trained for a race, and the cords stood out on his throat when he spoke, but nothing seemed to tire him. The good Countess lost her fresh colour and grew listless, but she complained only of the heat and the solitude of Rome in summer, and if she felt any impatience she never showed it. Cecilia was as slender and pale as one of the lilies of the Annunciation, but her eyes were full of light. In the early morning she often used to go with her maid to the distant church of Santa Croce, and late in the afternoons she went for long drives with her mother in the Campagna. Twice Lamberti came to luncheon, and the three were silent and subdued when they were together.

  Then the news came that Princess Anatolie had died suddenly at her place in Styria, and one of the secretaries of the Austrian embassy, who was obliged to stay in town, came to the Palazzo Massimo the same afternoon and told the Countess some details of the old lady’s death. There was certainly something mysterious about it, but no one regretted her translation to a better world, though it put a number of high and mighty persons into mourning for a little while.

  She died in the drawing-room after dinner, almost with her coffee cup in her hand. It was the heart, of course, said the young secretary. Two or three of her relations were staying in the house, and one of them was the man who had been at her dinner-party given for the engaged couple, and who resembled Guido but was older. The Countess remembered his name very well. It had leaked out that he was exceedingly angry at the article in the Figaro and had said one or two sharp things to the Princess, when Monsieur Leroy had come in unexpectedly, though the Princess had sent him away for a few days. No one knew exactly what followed, but Monsieur Leroy was an insolent person and the Princess’s cousin was not patient of impertinence nor of anything like an attack on Guido d’Este. It was said that Monsieur Leroy had left the room hastily and that the other had followed him at once, in a very bad temper, and that the Princess, who thought Monsieur Leroy was going to be badly hurt, if not killed, had died of fright, without uttering a word or a cry. She had always been unaccountably attached to Monsieur Leroy. The secretary glanced at Cecilia, asked for another cup of tea, and discreetly changed the subject, fearing that he had already said a little too much.

  “I believe Guido may recover, now that she is dead,” Lamberti said, when he heard the story.

  The change in Guido’s state came one night about eleven o’clock, when Lamberti and the French nun were standing beside the bed, looking into his face and wondering whether he would open his eyes before he died. He had been lying motionless for many hours, turned a little on one side, and his breathing was very faint. There seemed to be hardly any life left in the wasted body.

  “I think he will die about midnight,” Lamberti whispered to the nurse.

  The good nun, who thought so too, bent down and spoke gently close to the sick man’s ear. She could not bear to let him go out of life without a Christian word, though Lamberti had told her again and again that his friend believed in nothing beyond death.

  “You are dying,” she said, softly and clearly. “Think of God! Try to think of God, Signor d’Este!”

  That was all she could find to say, for she was a simple soul and not eloquent; but perhaps it might do some good. She knelt down then, by the bedside.

  “Look!” cried Lamberti in a low voice, bending forwards.

  Guido had opened his eyes, and they were wide and grave.

  “Thank you,” he said, after a few seconds, faintly but distinctly. “You are very kind. But I am not going to die.”

  The quiet eyes closed, and the mystery of life went on in silence. That was all he had to say. The nun knelt down again and folded her hands, but in less than a minute she rose and busied herself noiselessly, preparing something in a glass. It would be the last time that anything would pass his lips, she thought, and it might be quite useless to give it to him, but it must be ready. Many and many a time she had heard the dying declare quietly that they were out of danger. Lamberti stood motionless by the bedside, thinking much the same things and feeling as if his own heart were slowly turning into lead.

  He stood there a long time, convinced that it was useless to send for the doctor, who always came about midnight, for Guido would probably be dead before he came. He would stop breathing presently, and that would be the end. The lids would open a little, but the eyes would not see, there would be a little white froth on the parted lips, and that would be the end. Guido would know the great secret then.

  But the breathing did not cease, and the eyes did not open again; on the contrary, at the end of half an hour Lamberti was almost sure that the lids were more tightly closed than before, and that the breath came and went with a fuller sound. In ten minutes more he was sure that the sick man was peacefully sleeping, and not likely to die that night. He turned away with a deep sigh of relief.

  The doctor came soon after midnight. He would not disturb Guido; he looked at him a long time and listened to his breathing, and nodded with evident satisfaction.

  “You may begin to hope now,” he said quietly to Lamberti, not even whispering, for he knew how deep such sleep was sure to be. “He may not wake before to-morrow afternoon. Do not be anxious. I will come early in the morning.”

  “Very well,” answered Lamberti. “By the bye, a near relation of his has died suddenly while he has been delirious. Shall I tell him if he wakes quite conscious?”

  “If it will give him great satisfaction to know of his relative’s death, tell him of it by all means,” answered the doctor, his quiet eye twinkling a little, for he had often heard of the Princess Anatolie, and knew that she was dead.

  “I do not think the news will cause him pain,” said Lamberti, with perfect gravity.

  The doctor gave the nurse a few directions and went away, evidently convinced that Guido was out of all immediate danger. Then Lamberti rested at last, for the nun slept in the daytime and was fresh for the night’s watching. He stretched himself upon Guido’s long chair in the drawing-room, leaving the door open, and one light burning, so that the nurse could call him at once. He had earned his rest, and as he shut his eyes his only wish was that he could have let Cecilia know of the change before he went to sleep. A moment later he was sitting beside her on the bench in the Villa Madama, by the fountain, telling her that Guido was safe at last.

  When he awoke the sun had risen an hour.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  “I AM LIKE Dante,” said Guido to Lamberti, when he was recovering. “I have been in Hell, and now I am in Purgatory. But I shall not reach the earthly Paradise at the top, much less the Heaven beyond.”

  He smiled sadly and looked at his friend.

  “Who knows?” Lamberti asked, by way of answer.

  “Beatrice will not lead me further.”

  Guido closed his eyes, and wondered why he had come back to life, out of so much suffering, only to be tormented again in the same way, perhaps when the end really came. His memories of his serious illness were vague and indistinct, but they were all horrible. He only recalled the beginning very clearly, how he had glanced through the newspaper article and had dropped it in sudden and overwhelming despair; and then, how he had roused himself and had felt in the drawer for his revolver; not finding it, he had lost consciousness just as he realised that eve
n that means of escape from life had been taken from him. He remembered having felt as if something broke in his brain, though he knew that he was not dying.

  After that, fragments of his ravings came back to him with the still vivid recollection of awful pain, of monstrous darkness, of lurid lights, of hideous beings glaring and gnashing their jagged teeth at him, and of a continual discordant noise of voices that had run all through his delirium like the crying out and moaning of many creatures in agony. It was no wonder that he compared what he remembered of his sufferings to hell itself.

  And now that he was alive, of what use was life to him? His honour was cleared, indeed, for Lamberti had taken care of that. Lamberti had burned the papers before his eyes after telling him how Princess Anatolie had died, and had read him the paragraph which Baron Goldbirn had caused to be inserted in the Figaro. The Princess was dead, and Monsieur Leroy would probably never trouble any one again. When he had squandered what she had left him, he would probably get a living as a medium in Vienna. Guido knew the secret of the tie that bound him to the Princess, but was quite sure that the proud old woman had never let him guess it himself, in spite of her doting affection for him. Those of her family who knew it would not tell him, of all people, and if Monsieur Leroy ever begged money of Guido he would not present himself as an unfortunate cousin.

  Guido foresaw no difficulties in the future, but he anticipated no happiness, and his life stretched before him, colourless, blank, and idle.

  Since his delirium had ceased, he had not once spoken of Cecilia, and Lamberti began to fear that he would not allude to her for a long time. That did not make it easier to tell him the story he must hear, and the time had come when he must hear it, come what might, lest he should ever think that he had been intentionally kept in ignorance of the truth. Lamberti was glad when he spoke of Cecilia as a Beatrice who would never appear to lead him further, and knew at once that the opportunity must not be lost.

  It was the hardest moment in Lamberti’s life. It had been far easier to hide what he felt, so long as he had not guessed that Cecilia loved him, than it was to speak out now; it had cost him much less to be steadfast in his silence with her while Guido’s illness lasted. To make Guido understand all, it would be necessary to tell all from the beginning, even to explaining that what he had taken for mutual aversion at first, had been an attraction so irresistible that it had frightened Cecilia and had made Lamberti compare it with a possession of the devil and a haunting spirit.

  The two men were sitting on the brick steps of the miniature Roman theatre close to the oak which is still called Tasso’s, a few yards from the new road that leads over the Janiculum through what was once the Villa Corsini. It was shady there, and Rome lay at their feet in the still afternoon. The waiting carriage was out of sight, and there was no sound but the rustling of leaves stirred by the summer breeze. It was nearly the middle of August.

  “They are still in Rome,” Lamberti said, after a moment’s pause, during which he had decided to speak at last.

  “Are they?” asked Guido, coldly.

  “Yes. Neither the Countess nor her daughter would go away till you were well.”

  “I am well now.”

  He was painfully thin and his eyes were hollow. The doctor had ordered mountain air and he was going to stay with one of his relatives in the Austrian Tyrol as soon as he could bear the journey without too much fatigue.

  “They wish to see you,” Lamberti said, glancing sideways at his face.

  “I cannot refuse, but I would rather not see them. They ought to understand that, I think.”

  He was offended by what seemed very like an intrusion on the privacy of a suffering that was still keen. Why could they not leave him alone?

  “They would not have gone away in any case till you recovered,” Lamberti answered, “but the Contessina would not have the bad taste to wish for a meeting just now, unless there were a reason which you do not know, and which I must explain to you, cost what it may.”

  Guido looked at Lamberti in surprise and then laughed a little scornfully.

  “Is she going to be married?” he asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Already!”

  His tone was sad, and pitying, and slightly contemptuous. His lips closed after the single word and he drew his eyelids together, as he looked steadily out over the deep city towards the hills to eastward.

  “Then it was true that she cared for another man,” he said, in a low voice.

  “Yes. It was quite true.”

  “She wrote me in that letter that he did not know it.”

  “That was true also.”

  “And that he was not in the least in love with her.”

  “She thought so.”

  “But she was mistaken, you mean to say. He loved her, but did not show it.”

  “Precisely. He loved her, but he was careful not to show it because he understood that her mother and the Princess wished to marry her to you, and because he happened to know that you were in earnest.”

  “That was decent of him, at all events,” Guido said wearily. “Some men would have behaved differently.”

  “I daresay,” Lamberti answered.

  “Is he a man I know?”

  “Yes. You know him very well.”

  “And now she has asked you to tell me his name. I suppose that is why you begin this conversation. You are trying to break it gently to me.” He smiled contemptuously.

  “Yes!”

  The word was spoken as if it cost an effort. Lamberti held his stout stick with both hands over his crossed knee and leaned back, so that it bent a little with the strain.

  “My dear fellow,” said Guido, with a little impatience, “it seems to me that you need not take so much trouble to spare my feelings! If you do not tell me who the man is, some one else will.”

  “No one else can,” Lamberti answered, with emphasis.

  “Why not? I would rather speak of her with you, if I must speak of her at all, of course. But some obliging person is sure to tell me, or write to me about it, as soon as the engagement is announced. ‘My dear d’Este, do you remember that girl you were engaged to last spring?’ And so on. Remember her!”

  “There is no engagement,” Lamberti said. “No one will write to you about it, and no one knows who the man is, except the Contessina and the man himself.”

  “And you,” corrected Guido. “You may as well keep the secret, so far as I am concerned. I have no curiosity about it. There will be time enough to tell me when the engagement is announced.”

  “I do not think that there can be any engagement until you know.”

  “Oh, this is absurd! The Contessina was frank. She did not love me, she told me so, and we agreed that our engagement should end. What possible claim have I to know whom she wishes to marry now?”

  “You have the strongest claim that any man can have, though not on her. The man is your friend.”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Guido, becoming impatient. “A dozen men I like might be called friends of mine, I suppose, but you know very well that you are the only intimate friend I have.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Well? I can hardly fancy that you mean yourself, can I?”

  Lamberti did not move, but as Guido looked at him for an answer, he saw that he could not speak just then, and that he was clenching his teeth. Guido stared at him a moment and then started.

  “Lamberti!” he cried sharply.

  Lamberti slowly turned his head and gazed into Guido’s eyes without speaking. Then they both looked out at the distant hills in silence for a long time.

  “The Contessina was very loyal to you, Guido,” Lamberti said at last, in a low tone. “She could not tell you that it was I, and I did not know it.”

  Again there was a silence for a time.

  “When did you know it?” Guido asked slowly.

  “After she had been to see you. It was my fault, then.”

  “What was your fault?”


  “When we went downstairs, I thought I should never see her again, and I never meant to. How could I know what she felt? She never betrayed herself by a glance or a tone of her voice. I loved her with all my heart, and when you had both told me that everything was quite over between you, I wanted her to know that I did. Was that disloyal to you, since you had definitely given up the hope of marrying her, and since I did not expect to see her again for years and thought she was quite indifferent?”

  “No,” Guido answered, after a moment’s thought. “But you should have told me at once.”

  “When I came upstairs the Countess was still there, and you were quite worn out. I put you to bed, meaning to tell you that same evening, after you had rested. When I came back you had brain fever, and did not know me. So I have had to wait until to-day.”

  “And you have seen each other constantly while I have been ill, of course,” said Guido, with some bitterness. “It was natural, I suppose.”

  “Since that day when we spoke on the staircase we have only been alone together once, for a moment. I asked her then if I should tell her mother, and she said ‘Not yet.’ Excepting that, we have never exchanged a word that you and her mother might not have heard, nor a glance that you might not have seen. We both knew that we were waiting for you to get well, and we have waited.”

  Guido looked at him with a sort of wonder.