Part 45 (1/2)

That same day Teleki hastened with the subscribed league to Ladislaus Csaky, and from him to Haller, and from him to the Bethlens. As soon as they saw Beldi's name, they signed the doc.u.ment without more ado, for all of them hated Banfi.

In every case the wives intervened. Terrible scenes took place. Nowhere did Teleki escape scot-free. But the league was successfully carried through, and that was, after all, the main thing.

And thus it was that Transylvania dug her own grave.

CHAPTER IX.

CONSORT AND CONCUBINE.

Ever since that painful scene at Bonczhida, Lady Banfi had not met her husband. Fate so willed it that Banfi was constantly away from home; scarcely had he come back from the Diet of Fehervar when he was called away to Somlyo, where his troops stood face to face with the Turks.

During the few hours however that he remained at home, his wife had locked herself up from him; not even the domestics caught a glimpse of her face. She did not quit her chamber, and received no one.

One day both the spouses were invited to Roppad by a distant kinsman, one Gabriel Vitez, who knew nothing of their estrangement, to act as sponsors to his new-born son. To decline the invitation was impossible, and thus it came about that on the day in question, Lady Banfi coming from Bonczhida and her husband from Somlyo met together, to their mutual confusion, at the festive mansion of the Vitezes.

At the first meeting they instinctively shrank back from each other.

They had both indeed longed for such a meeting, but pride had kept them apart, and thus while their affection rejoiced at, their pride revolted against this chance encounter. Of course they let nothing of all this appear openly. In the presence of their friends they had so to conduct themselves that n.o.body might suspect that this meeting was anything but an everyday occurrence.

At the end of the banquet, which lasted far into the night, Master Gabriel Vitez took care that all his guests should be lodged with the utmost convenience. Husbands and wives and all the young girls had separate quarters, and the young men were accommodated in the hunting saloon. For Banfi and his spouse the garden pavilion had been reserved, which, being at some distance from the noisy courtyard, promised to be the quietest resting-place of all. The host, with the most distinguished courtesy, accompanied them thither himself.

It was now a long time since they had slept together under the same roof.

Before so many acquaintances they could not declare their estrangement, and had been compelled to accept the nice quarters provided for them by their amiable host, who insisted, despite their protests, in showing them the way; jested pleasantly with them for a time, and only left them to themselves after wis.h.i.+ng them good-night some scores of times.

The pavilion consisted of two small adjoining rooms, such cosy little cribs, with quite an air of home about them. In one of them a merry fire was crackling and flickering on the hearth. In the corner a tall solemn clock was softly ticking. The brocade curtains of the large tester-bed were half drawn back, revealing behind them a comfortable, snow-white, downy expanse, on which lay, side by side, _two_ little pillows adorned with red ribbons.

In the other room, which was half lighted by the reflection of the fire, a couch was visible provided with a bear-skin covering and a single stag-skin bolster. In all probability no one had ever thought that it would be occupied.

Banfi looked sadly at his wife. Now that he was no longer free to approach her, he saw what a heaven he had possessed in that n.o.ble and lovely being. She stood before him with downcast eyes, so sorrowful and yet so mild.

In her heart, too, many traitorous thoughts pleaded for her husband; wounded pride, that unbending judge, was already beginning to waver. In a n.o.ble breast it is not hate but grief that takes the place of love.

Banfi drew nearer to his wife, seized her hand, and pressed it in his own. He felt that her hand trembled, but he also felt that it did not return his pressure.

He went still further. He tenderly pressed her to him, and kissed her forehead, cheeks, and lips. She suffered his caresses but did not return them. But if only she had looked up into her husband's eyes, she would have seen them glistening with two tears as sincere as ever repentant sinner shed.

Banfi, with a deep sigh, sat down in an armchair, still holding Margaret's hand in his own; it needed but a single tender word from his wife, and he would have flung himself at her feet and wept like a remorseful child. Instead of that, Dame Banfi, with self-denying affectation, said to her husband--

”Do you wish to remain in this room, and shall I go into the other?”

The icy tone of these words cut Banfi to the heart. His broad breast heaved a deep sigh, his eyes looked sorrowfully at Margaret's joyless face--to him a closed paradise. He rose gravely from his seat, pressed his wife's hand to his lips, whispered her a scarcely audible good-night, and tottered into the adjoining room, closing the door behind him.

Dame Banfi set about disrobing, but on casting a glance at the lonely couch, a painful feeling overcame her. She threw herself sobbing on the pillows, and then, finding no rest for her soul there, she stood up again, drew a chair in front of the fire, sat down, and burying her face in her hands indulged in brooding, melancholy, dreamy thoughts.

And can there be any greater grief than when the heart fights against its own conviction; when a woman can no longer conceal from herself that the ideal of her love, him whom, after G.o.d, she loves the most, is after all only a common, ordinary mortal?--that he whom she has loved so n.o.bly deserves nothing but her contempt? And yet she cannot but love him! She feels she ought to hate him, yet she cannot bear the thought of being without him. She would fain die for him, and the opportunity of dying will not come.

A single unlocked door separates her from him. They are only a few steps apart. How small the distance, and yet how great! She can hear him sighing. He too cannot sleep while he is so near to her whom he has so deeply wounded. What bliss it would be to traverse those few steps, to nestle side by side, to gratify each other's longings! But reconciliation is impossible; her heart yearns after it and recoils from it, loves and loathes at the same moment.