Part 37 (2/2)
The confidential servant rushed back to the hotel, after ascertaining that there would not be another train for two hours.
He told Diana what he had learned, and she listened attentively. She was pale and quiet, and she did not reproach the man again. It was of no use now. She had dressed herself, and she sent for a cab; and then she also was driven to the station, the man accompanying her. She did not speak except to give her orders.
She went at once to the station-master, an extremely civil individual with a great deal of silver lace.
”Can you give me a special train to Cuneo at once?” she asked.
The station-master was in despair, he said. There was only a single track, and it would be impossible to arrange the line at such short notice. He bowed, and looked grave, and put everything in the station at the disposal of the magnificent lady who ordered special trains as other people order cabs. But he could do nothing. Diana hesitated.
Something must be done at once.
”My brother,” she said, ”took the last train to Cuneo, and I desire to stop him. He--he is insane.”
It was a hard thing to have to tell a stranger, a railway official, and Diana was whiter than death as she said it. She would rather have put a knife into her heart.
The station-master was graver and more polite than ever. He could telegraph to all the stations to have the pa.s.sengers watched as they descended. Would she give him a description,--the name, perhaps?
It had to be done. She gave the details, and the telegram was sent.
Meanwhile she sat in the station-master's private office, to wait for more than an hour until the next train should be ready.
The consequence of all this was that when Marcantonio finally reached his destination, he was politely asked, in company with the other pa.s.sengers, whether he had seen or heard of an insane gentleman called the Marchese Carantoni. But his newly-found cunning did not desert him.
He shrugged his shoulders, and said he did not know the gentleman. He himself looked so quiet and dignified, that no one could have suspected him of being the person, and the short description telegraphed would have answered to hundreds of Italians all over the country. He had, of course, expected to be pursued, as lunatics often do, and he was prepared to baffle every attempt. His quiet look and frank smile were a perfect pa.s.sport. He even inquired of a porter at the station how he could best reach the Certosa di Pesio; and the man told him it was an hour's drive or more, and got him a little carriage for the journey, and received a few sous for his pains.
Marcantonio leaned back against the moth-eaten cus.h.i.+ons and smoked a cigarette and looked at the scenery. He hummed a little tune occasionally, and, when the dirty driver was not looking, he put his hand into his breast pocket, and felt that his pistol was in its place, and then the cunning smile pa.s.sed over his features.
He had managed it all so well,--there could be no mistake about it. He chuckled as he thought how Batis...o...b.. would expect to receive the visit of a third party, and would thus be suddenly brought face to face with the princ.i.p.al. He thought he could antic.i.p.ate just how Batis...o...b.. would look, and he revelled for a while in the contemplation of his hatred. He had forgotten nothing now, except that he had ever forgotten his vengeance for a moment.
On and on he rolled in his rattling little cab. Through a long and gradually-ascending valley, thickly clothed with chestnut-trees of mighty growth. By the roadside ran a stream, that gradually became a torrent as the inclination of its course grew steeper, and the road wound up towards the source. Here and there the water fell over a natural weir of dark-brown rock, forming a deep pool below, where the trout lurked in the shadow. Again the thick woods receded a little on each side, and the bed of the stream, now shallow from the summer heat, grew broad and stony; and further on there was a bit of gra.s.sy bank overhung with many trees, and the small river swept smoothly round.
Suddenly the carriage drew up before an old stone gateway that seemed to start out of the foliage, and there was a noise as of a deep fall of water, at once wild and smooth. Marcantonio had reached the Carthusian monastery at last. His purpose was almost accomplished.
It is a strange building in a marvellous situation. Those old monks knew where to live, as they have always known in all ages and countries,--from the priests of Egypt to the monks of Buddha, from the Benedictines of Subiaco to the holy men of ancient Mexico, they have all reared s.p.a.cious dwellings in chosen sites, where the body might live in peace and the soul be raised, by contemplating the beauties of the earth, to the imagination of the beauties of heaven. They were wise old men; some of them were good, and some bad, as happens in all communities in the world; but they were men who did the earth good in their day, and found out the places that have often become cities in our times, whereby hundreds of thousands of souls have profited by their choice.
The Certosa di Pesio, where Julius and Leonora had taken up their abode for a time, is turned into an establishment for cold-water cures. There are generally some fifty or sixty people there from Turin and the neighbourhood who take the baths, or not, as they please, and lead a pleasant life for a few months in the great cloistered courts, and the bright gardens, and out in the endless chestnut woods. A cool breath of the Alps blows down the valley, and the rush of the water, dammed up by a strong weir of ancient masonry, and continually pouring down with a steady, musical roar, pervades all the cool rooms and the sounding halls and pa.s.sages. It is an ideal place for the summer, almost unknown to foreigners. It is no wonder that Julius had thought it the very spot for Leonora to rest in until the heat was over. A little way from the buildings, up the valley, a dilapidated summer-house overhangs the stream. Sitting there you can see the whole wonderful outline of the convent buildings, crowned with chimneys which the old monk-architects seem to have delighted in greatly, giving them a variety of strange and grotesque shapes such as I never saw anywhere else. Julius and Leonora used often to come to the old summer-house in the afternoon, with their books, which were seldom called into requisition, and they would sit side by side for hours, till the evening sun warmed the colours of the pine-trees on the heights to a green-gold, and reddened the far-off snows of Monte Rosa with the last, loving touch of his departing light.
An obsequious individual came forward from the archway as Marcantonio drove up to the gate. Marcantonio eyed him, and perceived that he was a functionary of the pension.
”Is there an English gentleman here?” he asked,--”a certain Signor Giulio Batis...o...b..?” His voice was very calm, and had a certain suavity in its tones; he smiled, too, as he asked the question.
”Si, signore,” answered the man, bowing and gesticulating toward the building. ”Certainly. A handsome signore, with his wife--both Inglesi.
They arrived on the thirty-first of last month--five days. Will the signore do the favour to come in? I will inquire whether the English gentleman is at home.”
The slightest shade pa.s.sed over Marcantonio's face at the mention of the wife in the case. But the man would not have noticed it. Marcantonio felt sure he had not betrayed himself.
”I will wait here,” said he, ”while you inquire.”
The man disappeared, and Marcantonio was alone. He looked up at the windows in the grey walls, and saw no one. Nevertheless, at any moment Batis...o...b.. might appear--from the house or from the woods--he might be taking a walk. It seemed a very long time to wait.
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