Part 25 (1/2)
She laughed, scornfully enough, in his face. It was the first time they had approached any subject of this kind since the memorable night after Marcantonio's discovery. But since he had made up his mind to take her away he was willing to undergo another scene if it were absolutely necessary.
”To make you free from the society of Monsieur Batis...o...b..,” answered Marcantonio boldly. ”You can never be well until you are absolutely out of his reach, and if I must go to the end of the world I will accomplish that.”
”You need not insult me in words,” said Leonora, disdainfully. ”You have done it quite enough already by your deeds.”
Marcantonio was silent for a moment. The speech hurt him, for he knew how he believed in her innocence, and how it was his jealousy that now prompted most of his actions. His voice changed a little as he answered, and he was more like his old self than he had been for days.
”Leonora,” he said, ”I would not insult you for anything. But, would you rather I were not a little jealous, since I really love you?”
Perhaps he spoke foolishly--perhaps he hoped to soften her heart: at all events he spoke seriously enough, and laid his hand on hers. But she did not like his touch and drew her fingers away.
”A little jealous!” she cried. ”So little that I am kept like a prisoner and watched like a political suspect! Be jealous--yes--since you say you love me; but behave like a sensible creature. Moreover, you might make sure that you had some cause for jealousy before coupling the name of the first man you chance to dislike with mine. Is not that an insult?”
”Certainly it is--and if I did that you would be quite right,” said he; ”but things are a little different. You do not understand Batis...o...b..--I do. You have taken a fancy for him--so did I. But you push your fancy too far. I now understand him, and I do not think him a proper friend for you. You make difficulties, you insist upon seeing him. I forbid you, and prevent you. You turn pale and ill, and I am angry that you should be so foolish. Mon Dieu! I am angry--voila.”
”One must certainly allow,” said Leonora, with a sneer, ”that you have a singularly delicate way of stating your own case.”
It was the best thing she could find to say, though she knew the sarcasm was not merited. He wished once for all to put the matter clearly before her, and he did it honestly and delicately, since he described her pa.s.sion as a ”fancy,” her strategy and secret meetings as ”insisting upon seeing” Mr. Batis...o...b... It would be impossible to state such a case more delicately if it had to be stated at all. A cleverer man, or a less jealous man than Marcantonio, might have gone about it less directly; and that is all that can be said. But he was a half-formed character, as yet, with some good possibilities and hardly any bad ones.
He was naturally good, but good as yet without much experience, and his teaching in the troubles of life had come upon him very suddenly. It had never struck him that it could be difficult to manage a woman, and he did not like the idea now that it was thrust upon him. The woman he had made his wife would, he had supposed, be like his sister, of the kind that manage themselves, and do it well; and if he had antic.i.p.ated exercising any influence over Leonora, it was influence of a very different sort from that which he was now driven to exert. He had made up his mind, however, that she must obey him now, or that he should perish in the struggle, and a certain family obstinacy of purpose, inherited from his father and all his race, suddenly made its appearance and changed him from an easy-going, pleasant-spoken young fellow into a very determined man, so far as his wife was concerned.
He had said that she should go at once, and go she should, without any delay whatsoever. Instead of answering her sarcastic remark about his indelicacy, he went obstinately back to his proposition.
”Let us not talk any more about it,” he said, to cut the difficulty short. ”You will doubtless be so amiable as to give the necessary orders about your things?”
Leonora shrugged her shoulders very slightly, as much as it is possible for a great lady to do, and as much as would horrify a very strict duenna.
”If you wish it,” she said, ”I must.”
”Then we will start in two days, if it is agreeable to you.”
”It is not agreeable to me,” said Leonora, wearied to death by his civility, ”but we will start when you please,--in two days if you say it.”
She was casting about in her mind for some desperate means of seeing Julius and a.s.suring herself that he would follow her. Of course he would do that, but she could not go without seeing him once more in Sorrento; there was so much to be said that she could not write,--so very much!
The conversation with Marcantonio had taken place little more than an hour before dinner. As he left the room Leonora glanced at the clock.
There was time yet,--if she could only get some conveyance. She might see Julius and be back before dinner. She could make some excuse for not dressing--if her husband noticed it, which was unlikely. He had gone to his room, contrary to his custom, for he generally did not leave her until she went to dress. His windows were towards the sea, and she could slip out through the garden. It had rained a little, but that was no matter. There would be the less dust.
A garden hat she sometimes wore hung in the hall, among her husband's hats and whips and sticks; she s.n.a.t.c.hed it quickly and went out, walking leisurely for a few yards, till she was hidden by the orange-trees. Then she gathered up her skirt a little and ran like a deer over the moist path, through the gate that stood ajar, and down the narrow lane between the high damp walls towards Sorrento, never looking behind her nor pausing to take breath, for she feared that if she stopped to breathe she might stop to think, and not do what she most wished to.
There are always little open carriages hanging about the lanes during the height of the season, in the hope of picking up stray fares, and before she had gone two hundred yards she overtook one of these, moving lazily along. The man was all grins and alacrity at the mere sight of her and pulled up, gesticulating wildly and leaning backward over his box to arrange the cus.h.i.+ons with one hand while he held the reins with the other. The whole conveyance is so small that the driver can touch every part of the inside with his hands from his seat. She sprang in and told the man the name of Batis...o...b..'s hotel, promising him anything if he would drive fast. In six or seven minutes he brought her to the door, and she told him to wait. She would have dismissed him at once and taken another to return, but she found herself without money. She could borrow something from Batis...o...b...
He had chanced to tell her the number of his rooms one day, when she was asking about the hotel, and now she luckily remembered it. Stopping the first servant she met, she bade him show her the way. One of Batis...o...b..'s sailors, resplendent in dark-blue serge and a scarlet silk handkerchief, was seated on a bench outside the door. He was a quick fellow, and Julius employed him as his body servant. Sailors, he said, were always cleaner than servants, and much neater.
The man sprang to his feet, saw the anxious expression in Leonora's face and the general appearance of haste about her, and guessing that he could not do wrong, opened the door and almost pushed her in, closing it behind her and confronting the astonished hotel servant with a perfectly grave face.
Sailors have good memories, especially for people who own boats, and the man remembered Leonora perfectly well, having helped to row her to Castellamare, and having raced her crew on the occasion when Batis...o...b.. had attempted a precipitous flight. In his opinion the Marchesa Carantoni would not wish to be seen waiting outside his master's door, whatever might be the errand which brought her in such hot hurry. The hotel servant grumbled something about the franc he had expected for bringing the lady up, and the stalwart seaman laughed at him so that he cursed the whole race of sea-folk, and went away in anger of the serio-comic, hotel kind.