III.—THE AVOWAL.
Maulear, uneasy and disturbed by what he had seen, returned to his room. What could induce Taddeo thus to leave his mother's house, alone, at midnight, and in a storm? Could it be that, so recently liberated, he was about to begin again that life of plot and sedition which already had cost him his liberty? A deep interest united Maulear to Taddeo. The love he felt toward the sister, made him devoted to the brother, and the new dangers which might befall the young man seriously affected Maulear. The night passed away without his being able to sleep. In addition to fear on account of Taddeo, his heart was yet agitated by the emotions of the previous day; but above all, he thought of the woman who had stood at his window, and whose appearance he could not forget. A terrible idea then occurred to him. The room he occupied had been that of Gaetano Brignoli. Had this young girl, apparently so pure and modest, had the White Rose of Sorrento, any secret amour or intrigue? The young man who had seen the companion of her infancy might know of it. Could this charming flower be already scorched by the hot breath of passion? Maulear reproached himself as with a crime, for the mental profanation of his divinity.
The morning meal assembled together all the family and guests. Taddeo participated in it as naturally as if he had passed the whole night in the villa, and not a word was said of his nocturnal expedition. He was not so melancholy and moody as he had been on the previous night, and a careful observer might have marked on his features the satisfaction following the performance of a painful duty. The Brignoli bade adieu to Signora Rovero immediately after breakfast, and returned to their villa. Maulear was delighted at their departure.
"Marquis," said Taddeo, "permit me to treat you as a friend, and ask a favor of you—a favor that will require you to renounce the brilliant saloons of Naples, whose chief ornaments are the attachés of the French embassy, to lead for a time a retired country-life with my mother and sister?"
"If that be the favor you ask of me," said Maulear with joy, "you confer one on me. I accept your proposition with gratitude."
"What are you thinking of, brother? How can you propose such an exile to the Marquis? Our life in the country is so sad and melancholy; what can we offer him as a compensation for the amusements he would sacrifice?"
"Where would be the merit of the service, unless its performance cost some sacrifice?" said Taddeo. "In one word, this is the state of affairs. An obligation, my honor imposes on me, requires me for at least a week to be absent from Sorrento. The trial of Count Monte-Leone will begin in a few days, and I must be present at it. It is said," added he, with hesitation and a significant glance at the Marquis, "that the Count's partisans will on that occasion be active. His enemies too are numerous, and as he is known to have come to this house, I cannot feel satisfied unless some courageous and energetic man replaces me, and deigns to watch over the two dear beings I am forced to leave. This, Marquis, is what I expect from you."
"My heart, my arm, my life, are all at the ladies' disposal. You may rely on me."
Aminta looked down, for the first consecration made by Maulear was evidently intended for her. Taddeo did not remark it, and clasped with gratitude the hand of his new friend. Signora Rovero, terrified at the idea of losing her son again, looked sadly at him.
"I do not know what is going on," said she with emotion, and with that instinct which reveals to a mother the danger of a beloved son. "I shudder, however, Taddeo, when I see you surrounded by danger. You do not like the government, I know, for by the fall of Murat a brilliant career was closed before you, for your father was one of his greatest favorites. But in your father's name I, your mother, his widow, whose hope and support you are, beseech you not to expose the life which does not belong to you alone. Remember, my child, your sister and myself have no other support in life than yourself, and that my weak and failing existence could not withstand your loss."
Taddeo grew pale, for the association with which he was affiliated might expose him to all the dangers of which his mother was apprehensive. He concealed his agitation by caresses and iterations of love, mentally resolving to turn aside in time from his sad career, as if those who involve themselves in perdition can pause in the rapid descent down the declivity to sorrow and death, whither the sturdiest champions are hurried to be entombed in the grave they have dug for themselves.
"You will go then to Naples?" said Signora Rovero to her son. "God grant that Monte-Leone recover his liberty, since he is your friend! But, Taddeo, do not trust to his adventurous mind; he is a hurricane, enveloping all in his path. Heaven grant he may not bear you away with him."
This conversation on this subject, so painful to the mother and annoying to the son, ended here.
"Will you deign, Signorina," said the Marquis to Aminta, "to accept me as a guest for a few days?"
"Certainly, if you are not afraid of our retreat. Besides," added she, with a smile, "one must have suffered as much as Leonora's lover, not to be happy in the paradise of Sorrento."
Maulear remembered the words he had written on the wall of Tasso's house. But before he could express his astonishment and joy, Aminta was gone. Just then it was announced to Maulear, that his horse waited him at the gate of the park.
"We will accompany you thither (my sister and I)," said Taddeo.
Signora Rovero called Aminta to her, and added: "The air is keen, my child: cover your head with your lace veil. It becomes you."
Maulear turned quickly toward Aminta with his mind full of fear and surprise—
"I am afraid I have lost my veil. I looked for it this morning, but could not find it." Aminta seemed annoyed. Her emotion was perceived at once by Maulear, who said to himself: "What mystery is this? why conceal it from me?" The coincidence of a veil being found by him, and of Aminta having lost one, made him keenly anxious: he was terrified, confounded, and so excited, that he could scarcely speak to Taddeo and Aminta as he crossed the park with them.
"Remember," said Rovero to him, "that my mother and sister will expect you here in a few days."
"In a few days," said Aminta, giving the Marquis her sweetest smile.
"In a few days," replied Maulear, as he mounted his horse, and cast on the young girl a look of doubting love. He then galloped off, and soon disappeared in the long road to Sorrento.
When he returned to Naples, the whole city was busy with the approaching trial of Monte-Leone, who was so beloved by one portion of the community and so unpopular with the other. The nobility of the two Sicilies deplored the errors of the Count, and regretted that one of the most illustrious of the great names of Naples should embrace and defend so plebeian a cause; one in their eyes so utterly without interest as that of popular rights. But it was wounded at the idea that a peer should die by the hand of the executioner. The old leaven of independence, innate in all the aristocracies of Europe; the feudal aspirations which Louis XI. and Richelieu had so completely annihilated and subdued in France, yet germinated in the minds of the nobles of Naples. They loved the king because he maintained their privileges, and had re-established the rights of their birth. They would have revolted had he touched them. From pride of birth they would have applauded the execution of a plebeian conspirator, but were prepared to cry out en masse against that of Monte-Leone, because he was one of themselves.
The people looked on the illustrious prisoner as a defender of their rights, and sympathized with him. To sharpen this sympathy, the adepts of the Italian vente everywhere represented their chief as a martyr to his love of the people, and a victim of monarchy. Most injurious charges were everywhere circulated against Fernando IV. It was said that he had inherited the hatred of Carlos III. to the Monte-Leoni, and sought to follow out on the son the vengeance to which the father had fallen a victim. Nothing was omitted that could stimulate the favor of the superstitious and impressionable people of Naples. The same executioner, block and axe, which had been used at the father's death, by a strange fatality, would come in play again at the murder of the son. The imprisonment of the son at the Castle Del Uovo, where the father had died, gave something of plausibility to this story. But what most excited public curiosity was the strange incident which had taken place at Torre-del-Greco. All were impatient for its explanation. The double and impossible presence of the Count at the house of Stenio Salvatori, and within the fifty locks of the Castle Del Uovo, his contest with his enemy, the wound he was accused of having given him, his ubiquity at the same hour in different places, produced a thousand incredible versions, a thousand bets on this wonderful fact, unrivalled in the judicial annals of Naples.
The name of Monte-Leone was so closely and intimately linked with the destiny of the Marquis de Maulear, with his friendship to Taddeo, and his love of Aminta, that he partook of the general interest inspired by the Count, and as a man of honor hoped for acquittal, notwithstanding the influence it might exert on his happiness.
To lose confidence in one we love, is the greatest agony possible. The four days, therefore, which separated him from Aminta, were four centuries to Maulear. Like the majority of rich young men of our times, yielding at an early age to liaisons, he had formed an erroneous and unjust opinion of women in general. The withered myrtles he had often gathered, the passing amours in which almost all the men of his rank, fortune and appearance indulge, had distorted his mind in relation to a sex, the least respectable portion of which alone he was acquainted with. But the young Marquis had exalted sentiments, and his high spirit turned aside from vulgar, common pleasures. His first loves, or not to profane that word, his first indulgences, had for their object those women who lead astray an ardent mind or passionate natures; those women who, betrayed into marriage, seek elsewhere a recompense for their misfortunes or the deceptions practised upon them, and fancy they can find it in the inexperience and youth of young men, whom chance throws in their way. The latter proudly, and at first eagerly, accepting their conquests, soon discover, that often they are not heroes. They become themselves the accomplices of the criminal devices, the studied falsehoods, employed by married women to abuse those on whom they depend. In either case they see each other insensibly change, and in spite of themselves conceive an aversion to those pleasures, even in sharing which they blush. The idol becomes a mere woman, and the hero of these adventures fancies himself right in estimating all women by a few exceptions, and becomes an atheist in love because he has sacrificed to false gods.
This deplorable theory had taken possession of Maulear. His naturally pure sentiments, the poetry of his heart, had been dissipated in ephemeral indulgences. The Countess of Grandmesnil, the guardian of the young man, fearing lest a serious passion should contravene his father's views,—encouraged him in his liaisons, or at least she did nothing to induce him to abandon them. Under this sad opinion, which is unfortunately too common in our days, that female virtue is but a name, and that the most prudent only need opportunity to go astray, Maulear came to Naples, where we must say much success in gallantry fortified his faith in these detestable principles.
His meeting with one so pure as Aminta had wrought a complete change in his ideas. He saw woman under a new aspect, as we dream of her at twenty, when the young soul first awakes. He suffered intensely when suspicion gnawed at his heart. "What," said he, yet under the influence of the pernicious theories of his youth, "not one woman worthy of respect! Even this young girl, apparently so modest and pure, unworthy the confidence I reposed in her." The recollection of the chaste and maidenly appearance of Aminta soon put such ideas to flight, and Maulear thenceforth had but one idea, but one desire. He sought to clear up the strange mystery of his nocturnal vision, and extricate himself from his cruel perplexity.
On the day appointed for his return to Sorrento, as the clock struck ten, he stopped his horse at the garden gate where four days before he had left Aminta. The gate was open. He entered the orange grove which lay between it and the house. A secret hope told him he would find Aminta there. He was not mistaken. She sat beneath a rustic porch, which served as a portal to the prettiest cottage imaginable. This building, constructed of the slightest material, had windows closed with gayly-covered verandahs, and served to shelter walkers from the heat of the summer's sun. It was Aminta's favorite retreat, and thither she came in the morning to paint her sisters, the white Bengal roses, the red cactus and the graceful clematides, which surrounded her charming retreat. There in the evening, pensive and reflective, the young girl suffered her glance to stray over the vast horizon of the sea gilded by the sun's expiring rays. On the day we speak of, Maulear found her reading, or rather seeming to read, for her book rested on her knee, her ivory brow supported by her hand. Her eyes, lifted up to heaven, seemed to ask the realization of some gentle dream inspired doubtless by the author. Perhaps the nature of the dream might have been devised by the book—Tasso's Divine Poem! Maulear glided rather than walked to her, so fearful was he of destroying the beautiful tableau presented to him by chance. Then he paused some moments behind a screen of leaves, and looked at the beautiful dreamer, in mute but passionate adoration. As he scanned her girlish form, becoming intoxicated with her modest charms, Maulear blushed at his suspicions, and resolved to abandon them. God did not make such angels for men to distrust, and Aminta, beautiful as the heavenly beings, must be pure and spiritual as they.
He left his concealment, and approached Aminta. She moved when she saw him, for he had surprised her in a dream. The dreams of young girls are treasures to be concealed from the profane in the most profound sanctuary of the heart. Aminta advanced a step or two towards Maulear, thus testifying her wish to return to the villa. But the Marquis, afraid of losing this favorable opportunity to see her for a short time alone, begged her to be seated, and took his place beside her, making, as an excuse, an allusion to the fatigue of riding rapidly from Naples to Sorrento.
Aminta sat down, but with an embarrassment which Maulear could not but see. "You have kept your promise, Signor," said she, seeking to disguise her trouble by speaking first.
"How could I not keep my promise?" said Maulear. "It was to see you again."
"We know what such devotion must cost you," Aminta replied, speaking aloud, as if her words were not intended only for Maulear. "Both my mother and myself are very grateful to you."
"Signorina," said Maulear, with an effort, for he was afraid of wasting in commonplaces moments in which every word he uttered had a priceless value, "I did not think, as I wrote on the wall of Tasso's house the simple lines you deigned to read and remember, that I thus wrote out my horoscope, and divined the happiness fate marked out for me at Sorrento."
"Happiness?" said Aminta, and she trembled as she spoke. "You must refer to the service you have rendered me."
"I speak," said Maulear, unable to restrain himself, "of a new and strange feeling to me, full of pleasure and pain, of hope and fear. I speak of a love, which will be the pride and joy of my existence, if it be shared; which will bring despair and torment, if she who inspires it rejects it."
"Pray be silent," said Aminta, rising and looking with fear around her.
"Ah, you have understood me," said Maulear, attributing to his confession Aminta'a emotion.
The young girl was silent. Her eyes turned towards the door of the hut, as if she feared some one would open it.
"What I say here, Signorina, with nought near me but the passing cloud and flying bird, I wish to repeat to those who love you—before your mother and brother, whom I would look on as my own. It is for you to tell me whether I shall speak to them or be silent."
Just then a faint noise was heard in the summer-house.
Maulear did not perceive it, for Aminta, more and more disturbed by the mysterious noise, had suffered the Marquis to take her hand, and the latter, interpreting this favor as his heart wished, fell on his knees before the young girl, who, overcome with emotion, sat down.
"Aminta," said he, passionately, "since the first day I saw you, my soul, my life, have been your own. If you but will it, your life shall be my own—my own, to make every hour of your life one of joy and pleasure—mine, in adoring you as we do the saints in heaven."
Maulear, with his eyes fixed on Aminta's, sought an echo to the outpourings of his soul. His lips were on Aminta's hand, when, between the young girl and himself, he saw a hideous head, made yet more horrid by the agony it expressed. Aminta suddenly withdrew, and Maulear experienced that terror of which the bravest are sensible when they tread on a reptile.
"Scorpione!" said the Marquis.
This name, on the lips of the Marquis at such a time, made such an impression, that a stream of blood, mingled with white froth, burst from his lips, and fell at Aminta's feet.
"Help, Signor!" said she to Maulear, "help, I pray you, for this unfortunate man! This is the first time he has gone out since that cruel day. See, he dies!"
"What is the meaning of all this?" said Maulear to himself, as he hurried towards the villa. "Twice my being with Aminta has exercised the same effect on this unfortunate being. Can she love him? Can he be jealous?"