Part 22 (1/2)
”He will be out of the house before we are up,” she said in a tone of certainty. ”Go to bed, dear boy, and never let him trouble your peace again.”
”But I will trouble his peace,” answered Marcantonio, bending his smooth brows.
”We will see about that afterwards,” said Diana. ”If you think best to fight him, I will not oppose you; but we will talk about it. We cannot talk now. Good-night my dear, dear brother.”
She kissed him on the forehead and held both his hands for a moment, and then led him away. He obeyed mechanically, and they parted for the night.
Diana often wished her brother were a stronger man in the ordinary things of life, but she knew that he was honest, and no coward in danger, and that he always spoke the truth and kept his word. It was his fault that he always imagined every one to be as honest as himself until the contrary was proved,--after which he never trusted the man again.
Diana went slowly to her room and locked the door behind her. With a candle in her hand she entered the boudoir and looked round upon the scene of the catastrophe. The gla.s.s of the long window was still open, and the refractory blinds still closed, the bolts rusted in, beyond her strength to draw them. The servants had raised the desk upright and washed away the ink from the tiles; there was no trace of disorder visible. She could hardly realise that in this neat room, that very day, only a few hours ago, she had pa.s.sed through one of the most terrible experiences of her life.
She sat down in the chair before the desk and bent her queenly head. She had done her best for the right through that day, but it had all gone by so very quickly that she doubted whether she had done wisely. It seemed as though the burden of it all rested upon her--of the right and of the wrong; and the burden was very heavy. May G.o.d in his mercy give strength and courage to all brave women doing the right!
I think that ordinary women have more moral vanity than ordinary men; but that very good men have more of it than very good women. A good man always seems to have a conviction of goodness, to be quite sure when he has done right, and to enjoy the sense of having done it. A woman's sympathies are wider and reach further than a man's. When she has done her best, there always is something more that she would do if she could, and until that is done also she can never feel the comfortable delight in G.o.dliness experienced by man, the grosser creature, who hedges his possibilities more closely, and gets rid of his superfluous aspirations by the logical demonstration of the unattainable. But the sphere of ordinary women is narrower, and their sympathies are dispersed in a greater multiplicity and divergence of small channels, so that a little goodness, a little easy charity with a pretty name, is a luscious t.i.tbit to the tongue that speaketh vanity.
It was a dreary night to every one of the four,--least of all perhaps to Julius Batis...o...b.., whose fierce temper was thoroughly roused and would not be calmed again for days, giving him a kind of wicked satisfaction while it lasted. He spent most of the night at his window, smoking and going over the scenes of the day, and the scenes of the future. His mind ran in the direction of fighting,--to fight any one or anything would be a rare satisfaction; and ever as he fancied some struggle possible the hot blood rushed to his temples and longed for action, so that he bit his cigar through and through, and clasped his hands together till the veins stood out like ropes. He slept a little at last, and dreamed savage dreams of hand-to-hand combat, and woke with the roar of cannon in his ears. For he was a man of exaggerated fancies when his brain worked unconsciously, like many men who have ended in celebrity or in insane asylums.
The roar of the guns was only a servant knocking at his door, with hot water and a note. He saw Diana's handwriting, and suspected a new move, so that he was not altogether astonished by the contents. He understood that she had made Marcantonio sign her writing--by what means he could not tell--in order to force the position. There was evidently nothing to be done but to go. He would not have left the villa for anything Diana could have said, in his present humour, but it was impossible to bid defiance to the master of the house. Besides, he supposed that since Carantoni had invited him to leave, Diana had said something which would lead to a challenge from her brother, which could naturally not be delivered under his own roof.
He read the note through twice, and he went about his toilet with his usual care, looking angrily at himself in the gla.s.s as he shaved, but gradually composing his features to an appearance of calmness. Then he put his things together, rang the bell, told the servant he was going to Sorrento on business, and gave him a very handsome fee, requesting him to bring the things to the hotel in the course of the day. Julius took his hat and stick, and strolled out of the house toward the town.
Donna Diana and Marcantonio met in the morning. They saluted each other with the quiet, mournful understanding of people who have a common trouble, which they know must be spoken of, though they desire to put off the evil moment. They were both pale, and Diana's eyes were shaded by great dark rings that spoke of a sleepless night.
”Have you seen Leonora? How is she?” was her first question.
”Dio mio! She is very poorly. Poverina! It has made a terrible impression on her. Of course I did not speak of the subject.”
”Of course.” Diana sighed and looked drearily at the window, as though she wished she were outside, away, and beyond this trouble. She could not know what Leonora would say or do if Marcantonio ever broached the subject. ”I do not think,” said she, ”that it will ever be necessary to say anything about it. She will understand that you sent him out of the house,--she will never see him again.”
”Is he gone?” asked Marcantonio.
”Yes--early this morning. I sent to find out.”
”Then there need be no time lost,” said her brother. ”I have just written a note to De Lancray, at Castellamare. It is much better to have a Frenchman in dealing with foreigners. He will be here by one o'clock, and will arrange everything.”
Diana had expected that Marcantonio would send for a friend to arrange matters with Batis...o...b... She did not look surprised.
”Have you sent the man yet?” she asked.
”He is getting a horse, I suppose. I have not heard him go.”
”Tell him to wait five minutes. This is a serious affair, and we had better act deliberately.”
Diana intended to prevent the duel if possible. Marcantonio was willing to humour her, and went out to stop the man. When he came back, she made him sit down beside her.
She explained to him the situation very clearly. Batis...o...b.. had insulted Leonora, had done her a mortal offence. But Batis...o...b.. was not the important person in the case. Leonora was the important person. If matters had been different, if, for instance, a man had run away with another man's wife, then, of course, they must necessarily fight,--and the woman made no difference, since her reputation would be already destroyed. But it would be a terrible injury to a young wife to have her husband fighting a duel about her before they had been married three months. People always say there is not much smoke without a little fire; society, being generally averse to standing up to be shot at, says that a man in Marcantonio's position would not go out unless he had very serious cause. Of course it would say in this case that the cause lay with Leonora, that she should never have allowed a man enough intimacy to give him a chance of insulting her, and so forth, and so on.
Diana would not use the argument of the Church's prohibition of duelling. She knew that Leonora's welfare was the chiefest thing present in her brother's mind, and that if she could show him that, for Leonora's sake, he ought to leave Batis...o...b.. alone, he would a.s.suredly conquer his anger and his pride. He had no sanguine and combative instincts, like Julius; he did not like fighting for the enjoyment of it, and if he could be convinced that his anger was unwise, he would ultimately get the better of it, now that the first sharp moment of wrath was over. To preserve Leonora's spotless fame was a much more important thing than to punish an insolent foreigner for vainly attempting to damage it, and thereby calling the attention of the world to the fact that her reputation was capable of damage.
It was a hard fight, and Diana's patience never wearied through the hours they talked together. More than once she thought it was lost, and that Marcantonio would order the note to be dispatched. Nothing but the real affection and trust that existed between her and her brother made it possible for her to succeed. But at last he was convinced, and silently went out and got the note he had written, and tore it up before his sister. The die was cast, and he did not mention the subject again, but went to see his wife. At her door he was told by her maid that Leonora was asleep, which was not true. But he asked no questions, and retired to his own room to solace himself as he might. He was too deeply distressed to wonder why Diana did not go to Leonora and sit with her.