“To-morrow, child, to-morrow I shall be far away from you.”
We three continued to walk up and down: I tearful, desponding; the count abstracted, silent; Rinaldo with a sort of affected reckless gayety, assumed, doubtless, to conceal his real feelings. The men were sent away into the servants’ hall, and what little luggage my husband was allowed to take with him, brought down. I imagined I had a world of things to say in that hour, yet, when I went to speak, they escaped my recollection. I could think of nothing but the suddenness of this separation, and my own sad situation. The hour elapsed, it fled,—the man came to summon Rinaldo, the carriage was ready, the luggage was placed behind, the officers got into their carriages, the chief came to escort my husband to his!
“I regret extremely that it should be my misfortune to convey such disagreeable tidings, and to be the cause of bringing sorrow to such a lady,” said the man, politely raising his cap to me.
“It is not your fault; we excuse you; you merely act officially. If the carriage is ready, I am. Proceed, sir.”
I walked with him to the court yard, notwithstanding he cautioned me not to do so, saying I would catch cold. Four carriages contained the inferior men, and their principal occupied the same carriage with my husband. He did not kiss me farewell there before others, but relinquishing my hand with stoical energy, he entered it with his companion, and closed the door. He shook hands convulsively with the count, who went round to the carriage window to bid him adieu. I did not move; I was riveted to the spot where I stood. The carriage started, it whirled through the avenue, it passed the lodge, it was gone, the others following it. When my eyes could no longer discern any traces of it; when I was fully convinced that it was reality, no dream, but reality, stern reality; I turned within the hall, went up stairs, fell upon my knees by the child’s bedside, laid my cheek by his, and wept bitterly.
CHAPTER XI.
Reason almost failed me, when I awoke the next day. I wandered into the banqueting hall, calling for Rinaldo. The count followed me, entreated me to recollect myself, to bear misfortunes with calmness, with fortitude; asked what he could do for me. I answered not: I began to doubt my own identity. I only remembered distinctly that I was to leave that day, to go to Baie: every thing else seemed blank, intangible.
I summoned Guilo to my salon, and told him that the castle was sold by my husband to another, who would come in a few days to claim it. I offered to pay his expenses to any city he chose to go, or he might stay in the vicinity of the castle, and endeavor to obtain employment of the new owner. He thanked me for my kindness to him, and said he preferred remaining. The other domestics were sent away; my household was broken up. Pasiphae determined to accompany my precarious fortunes as the nurse of Raphael, and so all things being definitely arranged, Count Calabrella, myself, Pasiphae, and my beloved babe, started that afternoon for Baie. I, almost unconscious, allowed myself to be placed in the barouche, and without looking back at those proud turrets and massive walls, within whose confines I had passed two years of alternate joy and grief, I was borne away. We rode all day. The count, anxious to beguile me from sad thoughts, conversed charmingly, but though ever agreeable and fascinating, yet my mind was too pre-occupied to listen, and the object so kindly intended failed of its purpose; nor did my melancholy abstraction cease, when, on the second day of our travel, we entered Baie.
Oh, Baie! classic, beautiful, time-honored Baie! when again shall I revisit thy tranquil, lovely shores? when again shall I gaze upon thy pellucid waters, or roam over thy gentle, verdant hills, once the home of happy thousands,—thrilling with life, hope, perhaps happiness,—now silent, deserted; the seat of ruins, the abode of solitary peasants, who lead their flocks over the spot where once rose stately Roman villas, temples, theatres, and all the haunts of what was human vanity and life;—all which have faded into fragments, into dust, leaving those few remains to tell that the tide of human life had once passed there.