To Leeward Part 12

"You manage things very well, caro mio, so long as they are under your hand. But you hate to go and look after business when you want to be doing something else."

"After all," he argued, "when a man is just married"--

"He ought to be specially careful of his affairs, for his children's sake," interrupted Donna Diana with remarkable good sense.

She wanted a day or two in Rome, and she thought he was really remiss in his management. She had rather a contempt for a man who cast everything to the winds in order to be one more day with his wife. She did not believe that his wife would have done as much for him.

The end of it was that he agreed to stay a little longer, at least one day more than he had at first proposed; and he wrote an affectionate letter to Leonora, half loving, half playful, explaining his position, and telling her of his sister's coming, that she might be ready to receive her. He added that he hoped to see them very affectionate and intimate, for that Diana was the best friend his wife could have. If Batis...o...b.. had wanted to make a friendship between two women he would not have gone about it in that way. Marcantonio was very young and inexperienced, though he was also very good and honest. His sister saw both sides of his character and understood them. Leonora saw, but only understood the honesty of him. His inexperience she supposed to be a sort of paternal, philistine, prosaic, humdrum capacity for harping on unimportant things, and she already felt the most distinct aversion for that phase of his nature.

Diana and Marcantonio went down by the night train, having stayed the better half of a week in Rome. Marcantonio sent a telegram to Leonora in the afternoon, to say that they would come. They had a compartment to themselves, and as they sat with the windows all open, rushing along through the quiet night, they fell into conversation about Sorrento.

Madame de Charleroi had taken off her hat, and the breeze fanned the smooth ma.s.ses of her hair into rough gold under the light of the lamp, like the ripple on the sea at sunset. She was a little tired with the many doings that had occupied her in Rome, and her face was pale as she leaned back in the corner. Her brother looked at her as he spoke. 'Of course,' he thought, 'there was never any one so beautiful as Diana.'

What he said was different.

"You should see Leonora; she is a perfect miracle,--more beautiful every day. And though she has been on the water several times, she is not the least sunburnt."

"Have you sailed much?" inquired Diana.

"A good deal. I bought Leonora a very good boat in Naples, and had it fitted. It is so pretty. And before it came Monsieur Batis...o...b.. took us to Castellamare."

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Diana half interrogatively.

"Yes," answered Marcantonio. "He was very amiable, and then we had him to dinner. You know him, Diana?" he asked, as one often asks questions of which one knows the answer.

He did not remember having ever mentioned Batis...o...b.. to her, but his solitary journey to Rome a week earlier had set him thinking, in a lazy fashion, and he wondered whether his sister ever thought of the man after all these years.

"Oh yes," answered Madame de Charleroi. "I have known Batis...o...b.. a long time,--long before he was famous."

"Yes," said her brother, "I remember to have heard that he was once so bold as to want you to marry him. Imagine to yourself a little! The wife of an author."

There was nothing ill-natured in what Marcantonio said. In the prejudice of his ancient name he was simply unable to imagine such a match. Diana turned her grey eyes full upon him.

"My dear boy, do not say such absurd things. We are not in the age of Colonna and Orsini any more. I came very near to marrying Julius Batis...o...b.., in spite of your fifty t.i.tles, my dear brother."

Diana was a loyal woman, from the outer surface that the world saw, down to the very core and holy of holies of her n.o.ble soul. She would not let her brother believe that, if she had chosen it, she would have feared to marry a poor literary hack.

"Do you mean to say, Diana, that you loved him?" asked Marcantonio in great surprise.

"Even you must not ask me questions like that," said Diana, a little coldly. "But this I will tell you,--it was not for any consideration of birth, nor out of any regard of our dear father's anger, that I did not marry Batis...o...b... Once I was very near it. We are very good friends now."

She turned a little in her seat and drew the blue woollen curtain across the window to shield her from the draught.

"You do not mind meeting him?" asked Marcantonio, rather doubtfully.

To tell the truth he feared he had committed a mortal error, and was taking his sister into the jaws of danger and unhappiness. He had never suspected that she had entertained any idea of marrying Batis...o...b...

Julius was a very agreeable man, very amiable, as Marcantonio would have said. What a fearful thing if Diana were to take a fancy to him! Loyal as she was to Charleroi, she did not care a straw for him,--her brother knew it very well. Italian brothers are very watchful and Argus-eyed about their sisters.

"Why should I mind?" asked Diana, looking at him again. "We are very good friends. He comes to see me in Rome, every now and then. I do not object in the least, and he is really very agreeable."

'Worse and worse!' thought Marcantonio. 'She wants to meet him and is glad of the chance. But then, she is so good--what harm can it do?'

Between his idea that he ought to keep them apart, and his knowledge of his sister's upright character, Marcantonio was in a sad quandary. It always took him some time to grasp new situations,--and the idea that Diana had ever loved Batis...o...b.. was utterly new to him. True, she had not said it; she had only said that she had been near to marrying him.

CHAPTER IX.

When Leonora was alone, she resolved to have a good fit of thinking.

Accordingly, the next morning after Marcantonio's departure she sat by herself in a cool room, surrounded with books and dainty writing materials,--thinking. The little white cat that her husband had procured, because she liked animals, climbed to the back of her chair and made pa.s.ses at her head with its small, soft paws, seeming to delight in touching her. She put up her hand and pulled the little creature down to her lap.

"p.u.s.s.y," said she, talking English to it, "were you ever in love?" She kissed it softly and held it up to her fair cheek. "I wonder what it is like," she said to herself. "I wonder whether being in love is always like this! People who love always say they would die for each other. I am not sure whether I would die for Marcantonio. He is very good.

Yes--of course--one's husband! Any woman would die for her husband. And yet--if the knife were very sharp and cold,--or the poison very dreadful to take,--I am not sure. Perhaps there might be some other way out of it, and one would not have to die after all."

Poor Leonora, she made herself think she loved him, and then she applied all kinds of tests to her love which it would not bear, being but a very thin and pitiful little ghost of a love.

"I really believe," she said at last, kissing the cat and half closing her eyes, "that there is not anything much in anything after all. Things are not much more real than the shadows in the cave that Plato talks about. Oh dear me! And then to have people think that one is clever!

They have such an absurd idea about it,--Marcantonio, I mean. Of course it is the nicest thing in the world to be loved more than one deserves,--but, on the other hand, it is just as terrible a bore to have other people forever thinking you really worth more than you are. And then, to have him think that my little bit of knowledge is dangerous! As if so very little could help or hurt any one! I must know a great deal more before it can do me any good. I think I will read something hard to-day,--how pleasant it is to be alone!"

The last reflection came quite naturally, and she did not even pause and think about it, the sudden interest she antic.i.p.ated in reading having chased away the dutifully affectionate ideas she made it her business to build up concerning her husband. With characteristic quickness of determination she rose, got herself a volume of Hegel's "aesthetics," and buried her whole mind in the question of subjective and objective art.

To a woman--or a man either--who has not what is called an interest in life, all manner of things temporarily take the place which should be occupied by the leading, absorbing thought. The things that are but relaxations, amus.e.m.e.nts, or even unimportant bits of usefulness to the thoroughly busy woman, to a woman like Leonora become in turn objects of intense study and care, only to be cast aside and forgotten when the next day brings in a new era of speculation, weariness, or excitement.

It is good to read many kinds of books, it is good to do many pleasant and agreeable things, but it is emphatically not good to think many kinds of thoughts. If a woman must change her opinions, it is well that the change should be gradual and the result of careful study and examination, instead of taking place according to the weather, the cut of a gown, or the conversation of a stray caller. Men change their minds as completely as women, but not so often, and above all not so quickly.

To be unchangeable is the quality of the idiot; to change too easily belongs to children and lunatics; and the happy faculty of a sensible judgment permitting a change for the better and forbidding a change for the worse is the high privilege of the comparatively small cla.s.s of humanity who are neither fools nor madmen.

With Leonora to live was to change, and to change often. Br.i.m.m.i.n.g over and exulting in strength of physical life, neither her mind nor her nerves could keep pace with her vitality, and the result was the inevitable one. After great excitement there was morbid reaction, and in the state of rest there was a restless, insatiable craving for motion.

A strong man, ruthlessly ruling her by sheer superiority of ma.s.sive power, would have brought out all that was best in her, and would have driven her to her very best weapons for defence. But her husband was quite another sort of person. His love for her was by far the best thing about him; save for that, he was not an interesting man. He was young and very tactless, though full of good impulses and gentle courtesy to her and to every one. But he wearied her with useless details, and made her doubt whether his affectionate manner meant love or mere good breeding. He had an entire incapacity for making any one believe that he was capable of great things. His sister knew how real was his goodness of heart and how generous he could be, and she knew also how much he loved his wife. But she had no power to put into him the pa.s.sionate, burning romance which was precisely what Leonora most longed for; and Diana did not believe that such a woman as Leonora would long be satisfied with such a husband as Marcantonio.

Meanwhile the day wore on, and she read seriously, and had her midday breakfast in solitude and tried to read again. But by and by she nodded over her book and fell asleep in the humming heat of the summer's afternoon. As she slept she dreamed of a strong, black-browed man who kneeled there beside her in her own house, and who presently took her in his arms and bore her fast down the dark stairs and pa.s.sages through the rocks to the sea, where a boat lay; and as he carried her his eyes gleamed like burning stars, and she felt that her own grew big and bright. And suddenly he would have leapt into the boat with her, but he stumbled and fell, and she heard the deep roar of the waters in her ears as they sank together.

She woke with a start. The white cat had climbed up and lay on her shoulder, purring with all its might. That was evidently where the sound of the sea came from. She laughed, a little startled at the dream and amused at its cause. It had been so strange--so--so wicked. She was shocked. How could her thoughts, of themselves unaided, have gone to such a subject! Besides, it was not the first time. She had dreamed of Julius Batis...o...b.. before, and always of that strange look in his eyes, gleaming wildly with something she could not understand.

"It is dreadful!" she exclaimed, rising and going to the window.

She had slept long, for the sun was low, and when she looked at her watch it was six o'clock. She reflected that she had not been out all day, and that she wanted a walk. She wrapped something thin and dark over her white summer dress and left the house. The white kitten followed her to the door, mewing sorrowfully, and wistfully waving its little tail.

She walked slowly down the road musing on the odd thing she had dreamed, and seeking in her mind for the reason and cause of it, finding fault with herself for being able to dream such things. It is one thing to be able to call up images of ideal men, and to tell the truth she strove even against that; but it is quite another matter to find one particular man so much in your thoughts that you dream of his running away with you.

She looked up, and a little church was before her, the door being open.

She hesitated a moment; she had come out to walk, but it would be so pleasant to kneel in the cool, quiet place, in the half lights and deep shadows; to think, and think, and to pray sweet wordless heart-prayers, half mystic, half religious; to pour out the confessions of her soul's suffering, and to find, even for a brief s.p.a.ce, that trust in something unseen, which her troubled spirit could not give to earthly wisdom or earthly love. She raised the curtain and entered.

It was a simple little church, with a floor of green and white tiles, whereon stood rows of green benches and a few straw chairs. The light was high, and the sun did not penetrate into the building. Everything was very clean and cool. Over the altar was a great picture, neither bad nor good, of a monk saint, dark in colour and inoffensive in composition; there were two or three small chapels at the sides, and the plain white arch of the roof was supported by two rows of square masonry pillars.

When Leonora entered she saw that she was alone, and the antic.i.p.ated pleasure of religious exaltation was heightened by the sensation of solitude. She stood one moment, and then, being sure that no one saw her, she touched with her fingers the holy water in the basin by the door and made the sign of the cross, bending her knee slightly towards the altar. Had there been any one in the church she would perhaps not have done so; but being alone she loved to experience the forms of a religion in which she did not seriously believe, but in which she trusted far more than she knew. She went forward, took a straw chair, turned it round and kneeled on the tiles, burying her face in her hands.

At first, as she knelt there, she trembled with a strange emotion that she loved,--a sort of wave of contrition, of faith, of penitence, and of uncertainty, half painful and yet wholly delicious, that seemed to her the sweetest and most salutary sensation in the world. It was just painful enough to make the pleasure of it keener and rarer. She could not have described it, but she loved it and sought it, when she was in the humour. Gradually her troubles, real and fancied, would answer to her command, and array themselves in rank and file for her inspection; the domestic difficulties, small and snappish little knots of mosquito-like annoyance, biting tiny bites to right and left, and with little stings stinging their way to notice in the foreground; then the troubles of the heart, the temptations of a wild, unspoken and ideal love, streaming by her in the sweep of tempest and storm, stretching out sweet faces and fierce hands to take her with them, and to bear her away from hope of salvation or thought of heaven to the strange unknown s.p.a.ce beyond; then again the shapeless and awful host of her fancied philosophies, now towering in fearful strength and menace to the sky, and rending and tearing each other to empty nothing and howling hollowness, now falling down to earth in miserable shapes and slinking insignificantly away; but last and worst of all, there was a deep dark shadow, the trouble of her heart, the certainty that she had made the great mistake and done the irretrievable sin against truth, that she had married a man she could never love, but whom--G.o.d forbid the thought!--whom she might hate for the very lack he had of anything that could deserve hating. And then all the pleasure of her exultation was gone; and the dull, uncertain pain, that would not take shape because it had no remedy, filled all her soul and mind and body; she had never felt it as she felt it to-day, but she knew that each time she came to the church to let her heart talk to her in the silence, this same pain had come, sooner or later, and that each time it was stronger and more real.

She bent low under its weight, and the tears gathered and fell upon her hands and on the rough straw chair.