Pietro Ghisleri Part 24

It will be remembered that both Maddalena and Ghisleri were from the north of Italy, where the superst.i.tion about the evil eye is much less general amongst the upper cla.s.ses than in Rome and the south. Pietro himself had not the slightest belief in it, and he had so often laughed at it in conversation with the Contessa that if she had ever had any vague tendency to put faith in the jettatura, it had completely disappeared. But both of them were thoroughly familiar with the society in which they lived, and understood the position in which Laura was placed.

"I will help you as much as I can," said Maddalena, "though I cannot do much. At all events, I can laugh at the whole thing and show that I do not believe in it. But as for the rest,--placed as I am, I can hardly make an intimate friend of Lady Herbert Arden, much as I like her."

She spoke sadly and a little bitterly. Ghisleri made no reference to the last remark when he answered her.

"I shall be very sincerely grateful for anything you can do to help the wife of my old friend," he said. "And I think you can do a good deal.

You have great influence in the gay set--and that means the people who talk the most--Donna Adele, Donna Maria Boccapaduli, the Marchesa di San Giacinto, and all the rest, who are, more or less, your intimates. It is very good of you to help me--Lady Herbert needs all the help she can get. Spicca is a useful man, too. If he can be prevailed upon to say something particularly witty at the right moment, it will do good."

"I rarely see him," said Maddalena. "He does not like me, I believe."

"He admires you, at all events," answered Ghisleri. "I have heard him talk about your beauty in the most enthusiastic way, and he is rarely enthusiastic about anything."

Maddalena was pleased, as was natural. She chanced to be in one of her best humours on that day, and indeed of late she had been much more her former self when she was with Ghisleri. A month earlier, the discussion about Laura Arden could not have pa.s.sed off so peaceably, for the Contessa would then have resented anything approaching to the intimacy which now appeared to exist between Lady Herbert and Pietro. The latter wondered what change had taken place in her character, but accepted her gentle behaviour towards him very gratefully as a relief from a former phase of jealous fault-finding which had cost him many moments of bitterness. As he saw, from time to time, how her cold face softened, he almost believed that he loved her as dearly as ever, though the illusion was not of long duration. He left her, on that afternoon, with a regret which he had not felt for some time at the moment of parting, and he would gladly have stayed with her longer. They agreed to meet in the evening at one of the emba.s.sies, where there was to be a dance. In the mean time, they were to dine out at different houses, and the Contessa had a visit to make before going to the ball.

Pietro was sorry that he had promised not to quarrel about the story of the evil eye. The affair irritated him to an extraordinary degree, and though he had grown calmer under Maddalena's influence, his anger revived as he walked home and thought over it all. He dined that evening in Casa San Giacinto, and found himself placed between Donna Maria Boccapaduli and Donna Christina Campodonico. The latter was a slim, dark, graceful woman of five and twenty, remarkably quiet, and reported to be very learned, a fact which contributed less to her popularity than her own beauty and her husband's rather exceptional reputation.

Gianforte Campodonico was a man whom Ghisleri would have liked if they had not known each other some years previously in circ.u.mstances which made liking an impossibility. He respected him more than most people, for he had fought a rather serious duel with him in days gone by, and had seen the man's courage and determination. Campodonico was the brother of the beautiful Princess Corleone who had died in Naples shortly after the above-mentioned duel, and who was said to have been the love of Ghisleri's life. Gianforte, for his sister's sake, had made up his mind to kill Ghisleri or to die in the attempt, with a desperate energy of purpose that savoured of earlier ages. He was, moreover, a first rate swordsman, and the encounter had remained memorable in the annals of duelling. Ghisleri had done all in his power to avoid the necessity of fighting at all, but Campodonico had forced him into it at last, and the weapons had been foils. The world said that Ghisleri was not to be killed so easily. He was as good a fencer as his adversary, and was left-handed besides, which gave him a considerable advantage.

The result was that he defended himself successfully throughout one of the longest duels on record, until at last he almost unintentionally ran Gianforte through the sword arm and disabled him. The latter, humiliated and furious at his defeat, had demanded pistols then and there, and Ghisleri had professed himself ready, and had placed himself in the hands of his seconds. But both his own friends and Gianforte's decided that honour was satisfied, and refused to be parties to any further fighting, so that Campodonico had been obliged to accept their verdict.

He sought an opportunity of quarrelling again, however, for he was a determined man, and he would probably have succeeded in the end; but at this juncture the Princess died after a short illness, and after exacting a solemn promise from both men that they would never fight again. That was the last act of her brief life of love and unhappiness, and it was at least a good one. Loving her with all their hearts, in their different ways, both Ghisleri and Campodonico respected the obligation they had taken as something supremely sacred. Ghisleri went and lived alone in a remote village of the south for more than a year afterwards, and Gianforte spent an even longer period in almost total seclusion from the world, and in the sole society of his widowed mother.

Three years before the time now reached in this chronicle, he had married, as people said, for love, and for once people were right. His elder brother bore the t.i.tle, and as there was another sister besides the Princess Corleone, Gianforte's portion had been small, for the family was not rich, and he and his wife lived very modestly in a small apartment in the upper part of the city, the Palazzo Campodonico having long ago pa.s.sed into the hands of the Savelli.

And now, at the San Giacinto's dinner table, Ghisleri found himself seated next to Donna Christina, and nearly opposite to her husband. It had long been known and generally understood that Pietro and Gianforte had buried their enmity with the beautiful woman about whom they had fought, and that they had no objection to meeting in the world, and even to conversing occasionally on general subjects, so that there was nothing surprising in the fact that at a dinner of eighteen persons they should be asked together. It chanced that, by the inevitable law of precedence, Ghisleri sat where he did. Donna Christina of course knew the story above related, and in her eyes it lent Ghisleri a somewhat singular interest.

Now it happened, towards the end of dinner, that some one mentioned Lady Herbert Arden. Instantly Donna Maria, on Pietro's right, made the sign of the horns with both hands, laughing in a foolish way at the same time. Ghisleri saw it, and a glance round the table showed him that the majority of the guests did the same thing.

"How can you believe in such silly tales?" he asked, turning to Donna Maria.

"Everybody does," answered the sprightly lady. "Why should not I? And besides, look at the facts--San Giacinto had the name of the lady we do not mention on his lips when he broke that chair the other day--there, I told you so!" she exclaimed suddenly.

Young Pietrasanta, who, as it happened, had been the one to speak of Laura Arden, had upset a gla.s.s, which, being very delicate and falling against a piece of ma.s.sive silver, was shivered instantly. The claret ran out in a broad stain.

"Allegria--joy!" laughed the lady of the house. Italians very often utter this exclamation when wine is spilled. It is probably a survival of some primeval superst.i.tion.

"Joy!" repeated Pietrasanta, with quite a different intonation. "If ever I mention that name again!"

"You see," said Donna Maria triumphantly to Ghisleri. "There is no doubt about it."

"I beg your pardon for contradicting you," answered Ghisleri, coldly, "but I think there is so much doubt that I do not believe in the possibility of the evil eye at all, much less in the ridiculous story that Lady Herbert Arden's name can upset a gla.s.s of wine or break a chair."

"I agree with you," said Donna Christina, in her quiet voice, on Pietro's other side. "It is almost the only point on which my husband and I differ--is it not true, Gianforte?" she asked, speaking across the table to Campodonico. There had been a momentary lull in the conversation after the little accident, so that he had heard what had been said.

"It is quite true," he answered. "I believe in the jettatura, just as most people do, but my wife is a sceptic."

"And do you really believe that Pietrasanta upset his gla.s.s because he mentioned Lady Herbert?" asked Pietro.

"Yes, I do." Their eyes met quietly as they looked at each other, but the whole party became silent, and listened to the remarks exchanged by the two men who had once fought such a memorable fight.

Gianforte Campodonico was a very dark man, of medium height, strongly built, and not yet of an age to be stout, with bold aquiline features, keen black eyes, and a prominent chin. A somewhat too heavy moustache almost quite concealed his mouth. At first sight, most people would have taken him for a soldier. Of his type he was very handsome.

"Can you give any good reason for believing in anything so improbable?"

asked Ghisleri.

"There are plenty of facts," answered Campodonico, calmly. "Any one here will give you fifty--a hundred instances, so many indeed, that you cannot attribute them all to coincidence. Do you not agree with me, Marchese?" he asked, appealing to the master of the house, whose opinion was often asked by men, and generally accepted.

"I suppose I do," said the giant, indifferently. "I never took the trouble to think of it. Most of us believe in the evil eye. But as for this story about Lady Herbert Arden, I think it is nonsense in the first place, and a malicious lie in the second, invented by some person or persons unknown--or perhaps very well known to some of you. Half of it rests on that absurd story about the chair I broke in Casa Frangipani.

If any of you can grow to be of my size, you will know how easily chairs are broken."

There was a laugh at his remark, in which Campodonico joined.

"But it is true that you were speaking of the lady one does not mention at the moment when the chair gave way," he said.

"Yes," said San Giacinto, "I admit that."

"I agree with San Giacinto, though I do not believe in the evil eye at all," said Ghisleri. "And I will go a little further, and say that I think it malicious to encourage the story about Lady Herbert. She has had trouble enough as it is, without adding to it gratuitously."

"I do not see that we are doing her any harm," observed Campodonico.

"The gossip may be perfectly indifferent to her now," said Ghisleri.

"She is most probably quite ignorant of what is said. But in the natural course of events, two or three years hence she will go into the world again, and you know what an injury it will be to her then."

"You are looking very far ahead, it seems to me. As for wishing to do her an injury, as you call it, why should I?"

"Exactly. Why should you?"

"I do not."

"I beg your pardon. I think every one who contributes to the circulation of this fable does harm to Lady Herbert, most distinctly."

"In other words, we are not of the same opinion," said Campodonico, in a tone of irritation.

"And I express mine because poor Arden was my oldest friend," answered Ghisleri, with the utmost calm. "If I cannot persuade you, let us agree to differ."

"By all means," replied Gianforte, and he turned and began to talk with the lady on his right.

Donna Christina leaned towards Ghisleri and spoke to him in a very low voice, quite inaudible to other ears than his, as the hum of general conversation rose again.

"Is it true," she asked, "that you and my husband agreed, years ago, that you would never quarrel again?"

Ghisleri looked at her in cold surprise. He was amazed that she should refer to that part of his past life, of which no one ever spoke to him.

"It is true," he answered briefly.

"I am very glad," said Donna Christina. "I thought you were near a quarrel just now about this absurd affair. You hate each other, and Gianforte is very hot-tempered."

"There is no danger. But I am sorry you think that I hate your husband.

He is one of the few men whom I really respect. There are other reasons why I should not hate him, and why I should not be surprised if he hates me with all his heart, as I dare say he does, from what you say."

He glanced at her, but she did not answer at once. She was still young and truthful, and it did not occur to her to be tactful at the expense of veracity.

"I am glad you defended Lady Herbert as you did," she said, after a short pause. "It was nice of you." Then she turned and talked with the man on her other side.