Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 32

She turned away to conceal her tears.

"What is it?" asked Banfi, stroking his wife's forehead. "What is the matter? Why are you so pale? What do you want?"

"What do I want?" returned Lady Banfi, turning her streaming eyes up to her husband and sighing deeply. Then she dried her eyes, placed her arm in his, and as if to give another turn to the conversation, led him to her flowers.

"Look at that pa.s.sion-flower, how withered it is, and yet it is planted in a porcelain vase, and I water it every day with distilled water. But once I forgot to draw up the blinds, and now look how the poor thing has faded. It wants nothing--but sunshine."

"It seems," said Banfi, in a low voice, "as if we were to address each other in the language of flowers."

"What do I want?" repeated Lady Banfi, and leaning on her husband's neck, she burst forth sobbing. "I want my sunshine--your love."

Banfi at that moment looked very uncomfortable. He sat down on his wife's chair, took her gently upon his knee, and asked her in a kind tone, but not without a touch of temper too--

"Am I less able to show you my love now than heretofore?"

"Oh, no!--not less! But I see you so seldom. You have been away these six weeks, and you would not let me come to you."

"What, my lady! Have you suddenly become ambitious? Would you shine at the court of the Prince? Believe me, your court is much more splendid than his, and not nearly so dangerous."

"Oh, you know right well that I neither seek splendour nor fear danger.

When our only shelter was a rude simple hut, nay, sometimes only a tent, half buried in the snow, then you made me lay my head upon your breast, covered me with your mantle, and I was so happy, oh, so happy.

Oftentimes the din of battle, the thunder of the cannon, scared sleep from our eyes, and yet I was so happy. You mounted your horse, I sank down in prayer; and when you came back blood- and dust-stained, but unhurt, how happy I was then!"

"Heaven grant that you may always be so. But there is a happiness which stands higher than domestic happiness; there are matters where the mere sight of you would be to me a hindrance and an obstacle."

"Oh, I know what they are--sweet adventures, lovely women, eh?" returned Lady Banfi, with an arch voice but perhaps a bleeding heart.

"You are mistaken," cried Banfi, springing hastily from his chair. "I was alluding to the commonweal," and he began to pace angrily up and down the room.

When a husband takes umbrage at such jests, it is a sure sign that he feels himself hit.

At last Banfi unknitted his bushy brows and stood stock still before his trembling wife, who, ever since her husband entered the room, had been the prey of the most conflicting emotions; joy and grief, fear and rage, love and jealousy, still struggled for the mastery in her agitated breast.

"Margaret," he began, in an unsteady voice, "Margaret, you are jealous, and jealousy is the first step towards hatred."

"Then hate me rather than forget me!" cried the lady with a sudden outburst, which she instantly regretted.

"But what do you want me to do? Have you a single reason for suspecting me? Perhaps you want me to render you an exact account of how many miles I've travelled, how many people I've spoken to, like that blockhead Gida Bertai, for instance, who takes a diary with him every time he leaves the house, and reports to his better-half every half-hour? To hear you speak, one would fancy that I keep you under lock and key, like Abraham Thoroczkai keeps his wife, who, whenever he goes from home, puts a padlock on his wife's chamber, and on his return exacts an oath from all his neighbours that no one has spoken to her in the meantime."

Lady Banfi laughed, but it was a laugh which ended in a sigh.

"You evade the question with a jest. I certainly do not accuse you. I do not watch you, and if you were to deceive me I should be none the wiser.

But look! there is that in a woman's heart (a sort of sixth sense) which smarts she knows not why, and whereby she can tell instinctively whether her beloved's love is on the wax or wane. I know not, nor wish to know, whence you come and whither you go; but this I do know--you stay away a long time, and do not make much haste in coming back. Banfi, I suffer--I suffer more than you can think."

"Madame!" cried Banfi, turning upon his wife with a flushed face, "in this country divorce suits do not last very long!"

Lady Banfi fell back into her chair, pressed her hands to her heart, and gasped for breath. She uttered one sharp, plaintive cry, but no other sound came from her parted lips. It was as though some one had suddenly severed the strings of a harp with a sword.

Half fainting, the wife looked up at her husband, as if to make sure whether after all it was not a mere jest, though certainly a very ghastly one.

"You are unhappy," continued Banfi, "and I cannot help you. You are so romantic, and I'm not given that way at all. Perhaps my heart wounds yours, and I'm sorry for it; but your heart certainly wounds mine, and I won't stand it. I recognize no tyrant over me, not even in love, and I'll not endure persecution--no, not even the persecution of a woman's tears. Let us rend our hearts asunder. Better do it now while they will still bleed from the rupture than wait till they drop away of their own accord. Let us rather part while we still love one another, than wait till we have learned to hate."

During the whole of this cruel speech the lady panted convulsively for breath, as if a heavy nightmare were pressing upon her bosom and depriving her of speech, till at last her emotion found an escape, and she uttered a piercing scream.

"Banfi! you are killing me!"

Banfi himself seemed aghast at this cry, and turning round in the very act of quitting the room, cast a glance at his wife.

He did not perceive that at that moment the door opened and some one entered; he only saw that his wife's agonized countenance was suddenly distorted by an unspeakably painful smile. A forced smile on those convulsed features was something too terrible. Banfi thought at first that his wife had gone mad.

The next instant Dame Banfi rose impetuously from her chair, and exclaiming, "Anna! my darling Anna!" rushed towards the door.

It was then that Banfi turned round, and saw before him Anna Bornemissa, the consort of Michael Apafi. That lady's sharp eyes instantly detected the agitation of the consorts, though they both did their best to hide it, and not without success. But she made as though she saw nothing, and drawing Margaret to her breast, kindly held out her hand to Banfi.

"I heard your voices outside," said she, "so I came in without waiting to be announced."

"Ah, yes ... we were ... laughing," said Dame Banfi, covertly wiping her eyes with the corner of her pocket-handkerchief.

"And to what circ.u.mstances do we owe this extraordinary piece of good fortune?" asked Banfi, concealing his embarra.s.sment behind an exaggerated courtesy.

"As you did not bring my sister to see me," returned the Princess, with a reproachful smile, "I thought I would just visit my poor exiled Hungarian kinswoman myself."

Banfi felt the sting of these last words, and murmured as he stroked his beard--

"Here my fair sister-in-law may do with me what she will. She may make me the b.u.t.t of her sparkling wit; she may overwhelm me with her playful sallies. In the Hall of the Diet, before the throne of the Prince, we stand, face to face, as foes; but here you may command me, here I am only your most devoted servant, who delights to do homage to your charms, and is beside himself for joy to have you as his guest."

With these words Banfi embraced the majestic lady with easy familiarity; then, turning to his wife, added, not without a touch of malice--

"I hope you will not be jealous of Anna?"

The Princess hastened to reply instead of Margaret.

"Methinks you fear me too much to make love to me."

"I might perhaps if you were my wife. Yet we were near being wedded once. There was a time when I wanted to make you my bride."

"But it went no further than wishing," returned the Princess, laughing.

"We soon learned to know each other," continued Banfi. "There would have been no room in one house for two such heads as ours, which find one realm too small to hold them both. We both of us love to rule. We should have been hard put to it if one had been obliged to obey the other.

Things fell out for the best. We have found our corresponding halves--you Apafi; I Margaret--and we are both contented."

With these words Banfi tenderly kissed his wife's hand and departed, leaving the sisters alone.

Anna, with n.o.ble gravity, placed her hand on the shoulder of her sister, who looked up to her with a soft smile like an innocent child regarding its guardian angel.

"You have been weeping," began the Princess; "'tis in vain that you try to put a good face on it."

"I have not been weeping!" returned Margaret, keeping her countenance with wonderful self-control.