Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  I laughed as I met the audacious flash of his eyes; I knew, despite his protestations, that if Carmelo Neri ever did get clear of the galleys, it would be an excellent thing for him if Luziani’s vessel chanced to be within reach.

  “You have your brig the ‘Laura’ still?” I asked him.

  “Yes, eccellenza, the Madonna be praised! And she has been newly rigged and painted, and she is as trig and trim a craft as you can meet with in all the wide blue waters of the Mediterranean.”

  “Now you see,” I said, impressively, “I have a friend, a relative, who is in trouble: he wishes to get away from Naples quietly and in secret. Will you help him? You shall be paid whatever you think proper to demand.”

  The Sicilian looked puzzled. He puffed meditatively at his cigar and remained silent.

  “He is not pursued by the law,” I continued, noting his hesitation. “He is simply involved in a cruel difficulty brought upon him by his own family — he seeks to escape from unjust persecution.”

  Andrea’s brow cleared.

  “Oh, if that is the case, eccellenza, I am at your service. But where does your friend desire to go?”

  I paused for a moment and considered.

  “To Civita Vecchia,” I said at last, “from that port he can obtain a ship to take him to his further destination.”

  The captain’s expressive face fell — he looked very dubious.

  “To Civita Vecchia is a long way, a very long way,” he said, regretfully; “and it is the bad season, and there are cross currents and contrary winds. With all the wish in the world to please you, eccellenza, I dare not run the ‘Laura’ so far; but there is another means—”

  And interrupting himself he considered awhile in silence. I waited patiently for him to speak.

  “Whether it would suit your friend I know not,” he said at last, laying his hand confidentially on my arm, “but there is a stout brig leaving here for Civita Vecchia on Friday morning next—”

  “The day after Giovedi Grasso?” I queried, with a smile he did not understand. He nodded.

  “Exactly so. She carries a cargo of Lacrima Cristi, and she is a swift sailer. I know her captain — he is a good soul; but,” and Andrea laughed lightly, “he is like the rest of us — he loves money. You do not count the francs — no, they are nothing to you — but we look to the soldi. Now, if it please you I will make him a certain offer of passage money, as large as you shall choose, also I will tell him when to expect his one passenger, and I can almost promise you that he will not say no!”

  This proposal fitted in so excellently with my plans that I accepted it, and at once named an exceptionally munificent sum for the passage required. Andrea’s eyes glistened as he heard.

  “It is a little fortune!” he cried, enthusiastically. “Would that I could earn as much in twenty voyages! But one should not be churlish — such luck cannot fall in all men’s way.”

  I smiled.

  “And do you think, amico, I will suffer you to go unrewarded?” I said. And placing two twenty-franc pieces in his brown palm I added, “As you rightly said, francs are nothing to me. Arrange this little matter without difficulty, and you shall not be forgotten. You can call at my hotel to-morrow or the next day, when you have settled everything — here is the address,” and I penciled it on my card and gave it to him; “but remember, this is a secret matter, and I rely upon you to explain it as such to your friend who commands the brig going to Civita Vecchia. He must ask no questions of his passenger — the more silence the more discretion — and when once he has landed him at his destination he will do well to straightway forget all about him. You understand?”

  Andrea nodded briskly.

  “Si, si, signor. He has a bad memory as it is — it shall grow worse at your command! Believe it!”

  I laughed, shook hands, and parted with the friendly little fellow, he returning to the Molo, and I slowly walking homeward by way of the Villa Reale. An open carriage coming swiftly toward me attracted my attention; as it drew nearer I recognized the prancing steeds and the familiar liveries. A fair woman clad in olive velvets and Russian sables looked out smiling, and waved her hand.

  It was my wife — my betrothed bride, and beside her sat the Duchess di Marina, the most irreproachable of matrons, famous for her piety not only in Naples but throughout Italy. So immaculate was she that it was difficult to imagine her husband daring to caress that upright, well-dressed form, or venturing to kiss those prim lips, colder than the carven beads of her jeweled rosary. Yet there was a story about her too — an old story that came from Padua — of how a young and handsome nobleman had been found dead at her palace doors, stabbed to the heart. Perhaps — who knows — he also might have thought —

  “Che bella cosa è de morire accisa,

  Inanze a la porta de la inamorata!”

  Some said the duke had killed him; but nothing could be proved, nothing was certain. The duke was silent, so was his duchess; and Scandal herself sat meekly with closed lips in the presence of this stately and august couple, whose bearing toward each other in society was a lesson of complete etiquette to the world. What went on behind the scenes no one could tell. I raised my hat with the profoundest deference as the carriage containing the two ladies dashed by; I knew not which was the cleverest hypocrite of the two, therefore I did equal honor to both. I was in a meditative and retrospective mood, and when I reached the Toledo the distracting noises, the cries of the flower-girls, and venders of chestnuts and confetti, the nasal singing of the street-rhymers, the yells of punchinello, and the answering laughter of the populace, were all beyond my endurance. To gratify a sudden whim that seized me, I made my way into the lowest and dirtiest quarters of the city, and roamed through wretched courts and crowded alleys, trying to discover that one miserable street which until now I had always avoided even the thought of, where I had purchased the coral-fisher’s clothes on the day of my return from the grave. I went in many wrong directions, but at last I found it, and saw at a glance that the old rag-dealer’s shop was still there, in its former condition of heterogeneous filth and disorder. A man sat at the door smoking, but not the crabbed and bent figure I had before seen — this was a younger and stouter individual, with a Jewish cast of countenance, and dark, ferocious eyes. I approached him, and seeing by my dress and manner that I was some person of consequence, he rose, drew his pipe from his mouth, and raised his greasy cap with a respectful yet suspicious air.

  “Are you the owner of this place?” I asked.

  “Si, signor!”

  “What has become of the old man who used to live here?”

  He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and drew his pipe-stem across his throat with a significant gesture.

  “So, signor! — with a sharp knife! He had a good deal of blood, too, for so withered a body. To kill himself in that fashion was stupid: he spoiled an Indian shawl that was on his bed, worth more than a thousand francs. One would not have thought he had so much blood.”

  And the fellow put back his pipe in his mouth and smoked complacently. I heard in sickened silence.

  “He was mad, I suppose?” I said at last.

  The long pipe was again withdrawn.

  “Mad? Well, the people say so. I for one think he was very reasonable — all except that matter of the shawl — he should have taken that off his bed first. But he was wise enough to know that he was of no use to anybody — he did the best he could! Did you know him, signor?”

  “I gave him money once,” I replied, evasively; then taking out a few francs I handed them to this evil-eyed, furtive-looking son of Israel, who received the gift with effusive gratitude.

  “Thank you for your information,” I said coldly. “Good-day.”

  “Good-day to you, signor,” he replied, resuming his seat and watching me curiously as I turned away.

  I passed out of the wretched street feeling faint and giddy. The end of the miserable rag-dealer had been told to me briefly and brutally enough — yet somehow
I was moved to a sense of regret and pity. Abjectly poor, half crazy, and utterly friendless, he had been a brother of mine in the same bitterness and irrevocable sorrow. I wondered with a half shudder — would my end be like his? When my vengeance was completed should I grow shrunken, and old, and mad, and one lurid day draw a sharp knife across my throat as a finish to my life’s history? I walked more rapidly to shake off the morbid fancies that thus insidiously crept in on my brain; and as before, the noise and glitter of the Toledo had been unbearable, so now I found it a relief and a distraction. Two maskers bedizened in violet and gold whizzed past me like a flash, one of them yelling a stale jest concerning la ‘nnamorata — a jest I scarcely heard, and certainly had no heart or wit to reply to. A fair woman I knew leaned out of a gayly draped balcony and dropped a bunch of roses at my feet; out of courtesy I stooped to pick them up, and then raising my hat I saluted the dark-eyed donor, but a few paces on I gave them away to a ragged child. Of all flowers that bloom, they were, and still are, the most insupportable to me. What is it the English poet Swinburne says —

  “I shall never be friends again with roses!”

  My wife wore them always: even on that night when I had seen her clasped in Guido’s arms, a red rose on her breast had been crushed in that embrace — a rose whose withered leaves I still possess. In the forest solitude where I now dwell there are no roses — and I am glad! The trees are too high, the tangle of bramble and coarse brushwood too dense — nothing grows here but a few herbs and field flowers — weeds unfit for wearing by fine ladies, yet to my taste infinitely sweeter than all the tenderly tinted cups of fragrance, whose colors and odors are spoiled to me forever. I am unjust, say you? the roses are innocent of evil? True enough, but their perfume awakens memory, and — I strive always to forget!

  I reached my hotel that evening to find that I was an hour late for dinner, an unusual circumstance, which had caused Vincenzo some disquietude, as was evident from the relieved expression of his face when I entered. For some days the honest fellow had watched me with anxiety; my abstracted moods, the long solitary walks I was in the habit of taking, the evenings I passed in my room writing, with the doors locked — all this behavior on my part exercised his patience, I have no doubt, to the utmost limit, and I could see he had much ado to observe his usual discretion and tact, and refrain from asking questions. On this particular occasion I dined very hastily, for I had promised to join my wife and two of her lady friends at the theater that night.

  When I arrived there, she was already seated in her box, looking radiantly beautiful. She was attired in some soft, sheeny, clinging primrose stuff, and the brigand’s jewels I had given her through Guido’s hands, flashed brilliantly on her uncovered neck and arms. She greeted me with her usual child-like enthusiasm as I entered, bearing the customary offering — a costly bouquet, set in a holder of mother-of-pearl studded with turquois, for her acceptance. I bowed to her lady friends, both of whom I knew, and then stood beside her watching the stage. The comedietta played there was the airiest trifle — it turned on the old worn-out story — a young wife, an aged, doting husband, and a lover whose principles were, of course, of the “noblest” type. The husband was fooled (naturally), and the chief amusement of the piece appeared to consist in his being shut out of his own house in dressing-gown and slippers during a pelting storm of rain, while his spouse (who was particularly specified as “pure”) enjoyed a luxurious supper with her highly moral and virtuous admirer. My wife laughed delightedly at the poor jokes and the stale epigrams, and specially applauded the actress who successfully supported the chief role. This actress, by the way, was a saucy, brazen-faced jade, who had a trick of flashing her black eyes, tossing her head, and heaving her ample bosom tumultuously whenever she hissed out the words Vecchiaccio maladetto [Footnote: Accursed, villainous old monster.] at her discomfited husband, which had an immense effect on the audience — an audience which entirely sympathized with her, though she was indubitably in the wrong. I watched Nina in some derision as she nodded her fair head and beat time to the music with her painted fan. I bent over her.

  “The play pleases you?” I asked, in a low tone.

  “Yes, indeed!” she answered, with a laughing light in her eyes. “The husband is so droll! It is all very amusing.”

  “The husband is always droll!” I remarked, smiling coldly. “It is not a temptation to marry when one knows that as a husband one must always look ridiculous.”

  She glanced up at me.

  “Cesare! You surely are not vexed? Of course it is only in plays that it happens so!”

  “Plays, cara mia, are often nothing but the reflex of real life,” I said. “But let us hope there are exceptions, and that all husbands are not fools.”

  She smiled expressively and sweetly, toyed with the flowers I had given her, and turned her eyes again to the stage. I said no more, and was a somewhat moody companion for the rest of the evening. As we all left the theater one of the ladies who had accompanied Nina said lightly:

  “You seem dull and out of spirits, conte?”

  I forced a smile.

  “Not I, signora! Surely you do not find me guilty of such ungallantry? Were I dull in your company I should prove myself the most ungrateful of my sex.”

  She sighed somewhat impatiently. She was very young and very lovely, and, as far as I knew, innocent, and of a more thoughtful and poetical temperament than most women.

  “That is the mere language of compliment,” she said, looking straightly at me with her clear, candid eyes. “You are a true courtier! Yet often I think your courtesy is reluctant.”

  I looked at her in some surprise.

  “Reluctant? Signora, pardon me if I do not understand!”

  “I mean,” she continued, still regarding me steadily, though a faint blush warmed the clear pallor of her delicate complexion, “that you do not really like us women; you say pretty things to us, and you try to be amiable in our company, but you are in truth averse to our ways — you are sceptical — you think we are all hypocrites.”

  I laughed a little coldly.

  “Really, signora, your words place me in a very awkward position. Were I to tell you my real sentiments—”

  She interrupted me with a touch of her fan on my arm, and smiled gravely.

  “You would say, ‘Yes, you are right, signora. I never see one of your sex without suspecting treachery.’ Ah, Signor Conte, we women are indeed full of faults, but nothing can blind our instinct!” She paused, and her brilliant eyes softened as she added gently, “I pray your marriage may be a very happy one.”

  I was silent. I was not even courteous enough to thank her for the wish. I was half angered that this girl should have been able to probe my thoughts so quickly and unerringly. Was I so bad an actor after all? I glanced down at her as she leaned lightly on my arm.

  “Marriage is a mere comedietta,” I said, abruptly and harshly. “We have seen it acted to-night. In a few days I shall play the part of the chief buffoon — in other words, the husband.”

  And I laughed. My young companion looked startled, almost frightened, and over her fair face there flitted an expression of something like aversion. I did not care — why should I? — and there was no time for more words between us, for we had reached the outer vestibule of the theater.

  My wife’s carriage was drawn up at the entrance — my wife herself was stepping into it. I assisted her, and also her two friends, and then stood with uncovered head at the door wishing them all the “felicissima notte.” Nina put her tiny jeweled hand through the carriage window — I stooped and kissed it lightly. Drawing it back quickly, she selected a white gardenia from her bouquet and gave it to me with a bewitching smile.

  Then the glittering equipage dashed away with a whirl and clatter of prancing hoofs and rapid wheels, and I stood alone under the wide portico of the theater — alone, amid the pressing throngs of the people who were still coming out of the house — holding the strongly scented gardenia in my
hand as vaguely as a fevered man who finds a strange flower in one of his sick dreams.

  After a minute or two I suddenly recollected myself, and throwing the blossom on the ground, I crushed it savagely beneath my heel — the penetrating odor rose from its slain petals as though a vessel of incense had been emptied at my feet. There was a nauseating influence in it; where had I inhaled that subtle perfume last? I remembered — Guido Ferrari had worn one of those flowers in his coat at my banquet — it had been still in his buttonhole when I killed him!

  I strode onward and homeward; the streets were full of mirth and music, but I heeded none of it. I felt, rather than saw, the quiet sky bending above me dotted with its countless millions of luminous worlds; I was faintly conscious of the soft plash of murmuring waves mingling with the dulcet chords of deftly played mandolins echoing from somewhere down by the shore; but my soul was, as it were, benumbed — my mind, always on the alert, was for once utterly tired out — my very limbs ached, and when I at last flung myself on my bed, exhausted, my eyes closed instantly, and I slept the heavy, motionless sleep of a man weary unto death.

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  “Tout le monde vient á celui qui sait attendre.” So wrote the great Napoleon. The virtue of the aphorism consists in the little words ‘qui sait’. All the world comes to him who knows how to wait, I knew this, and I had waited, and my world — a world of vengeance — came to me at last.

  The slow-revolving wheel of Time brought me to the day before my strange wedding — the eve of my remarriage with my own wife! All the preparations were made — nothing was left undone that could add to the splendor of the occasion. For though the nuptial ceremony was to be somewhat quiet and private in character, and the marriage breakfast was to include only a few of our more intimate acquaintances, the proceedings were by no means to terminate tamely. The romance of these remarkable espousals was not to find its conclusion in bathos. No; the bloom and aroma of the interesting event were to be enjoyed in the evening, when a grand supper and ball, given by me, the happy and much-to-be-envied bridegroom, was to take place in the hotel which I had made my residence for so long. No expense was spared for this, the last entertainment offered by me in my brilliant career as a successful Count Cesare Oliva. After it, the dark curtain would fall on the played-out drama, never to rise again.