D’Avencourt looked puzzled; but he was a punctilious man, and knew how to steer clear of a delicate subject. He smiled.
“A la bonne heure,” he said—“I wish you joy with all my heart! You are the best judge of your own happiness; as for me—vive la liberté!”
And with a gay parting salute he left me. No one else in the city appeared to share his foreboding scruples, if he had any, about my forthcoming marriage. It was everywhere talked of with as much interest and expectation as though it were some new amusement invented to heighten the merriment of carnival. Among other things, I earned the reputation of being a most impatient lover, for now I would consent to no delays. I hurried all the preparations on with feverish precipitation. I had very little difficulty in persuading Nina that the sooner our wedding took place the better; she was to the full as eager as myself, as ready to rush on her own destruction as Guido had been. Her chief passion was avarice, and the repeated rumors of my supposed fabulous wealth had aroused her greed from the very moment she had first met me in my assumed character of the Count Oliva. As soon as her engagement to me became known in Naples, she was an object of envy to all those of her own sex who, during the previous autumn, had laid out their store of fascinations to entrap me in vain—and this made her perfectly happy. Perhaps the supremest satisfaction a woman of this sort can attain to is the fact of making her less fortunate sisters discontented and miserable! I loaded her, of course, with the costliest gifts, and she, being the sole mistress of the fortune left her by her “late husband,” as well as of the unfortunate Guido’s money, set no limits to her extravagance. She ordered the most expensive and elaborate costumes; she was engaged morning after morning with dressmakers, tailors, and milliners, and she was surrounded by a certain favored “set” of female friends, for whose benefit she displayed the incoming treasures of her wardrobe till they were ready to cry for spite and vexation, though they had to smile and hold in their wrath and outraged vanity beneath the social mask of complacent composure. And Nina loved nothing better than to torture the poor women who were stinted of pocket-money with the sight of shimmering satins, soft radiating plushes, rich velvets, embroidery studded with real gems, pieces of costly old lace, priceless scents, and articles of bijouterie; she loved also to dazzle the eyes and bewilder the brains of young girls, whose finest toilet was a garb of simplest white stuff unadorned save by a cluster of natural blossoms, and to send them away sick at heart, pining for they knew not what, dissatisfied with everything, and grumbling at fate for not permitting them to deck themselves in such marvelous “arrangements” of costume as those possessed by the happy, the fortunate future Countess Oliva.
Poor maidens! had they but known all they would not have envied her! Women are too fond of measuring happiness by the amount of fine clothes they obtain, and I truly believe dress is the one thing that never fails to console them. How often a fit of hysterics can be cut short by the opportune arrival of a new gown!
My wife, in consideration of her approaching second nuptial, had thrown off her widow’s crape, and now appeared clad in those soft subdued half-tints of color that suited her fragile, fairy-like beauty to perfection. All her old witcheries and her graceful tricks of manner and speech were put forth again for my benefit. I knew them all so well! I understood the value of her light caresses and languishing looks so thoroughly! She was very anxious to attain the full dignity of her position as the wife of so rich a nobleman as I was reputed to be, therefore she raised no objection when I fixed the day of our marriage for Giovedi Grasso. Then the fooling and mumming, the dancing, shrieking, and screaming would be at its height; it pleased my whim to have this other piece of excellent masquerading take place at the same time.
The wedding was to be as private as possible, owing to my wife’s “recent sad bereavements,” as she herself said with a pretty sigh and tearful, pleading glance. It would take place in the chapel of San Gennaro, adjoining the cathedral. We were married there before! During the time that intervened, Nina’s manner was somewhat singular. To me she was often timid, and sometimes half conciliatory. Now and then I caught her large dark eyes fixed on me with a startled, anxious look, but this expression soon passed away. She was subject, too, to wild fits of merriment, and anon to moods of absorbed and gloomy silence. I could plainly see that she was strung up to an extreme pitch of nervous excitement and irritability, but I asked her no questions. If—I thought—if she tortured herself with memories, all the better—if she saw, or fancied she saw, the resemblance between me and her “dear dead Fabio,” it suited me that she should be so racked and bewildered.
I came and went to and fro from the villa as I pleased. I wore my dark glasses as usual, and not even Giacomo could follow me with his peering, inquisitive gaze; for since the night he had been hurled so fiercely to the ground by Guido’s reckless and impatient hand, the poor old man had been paralyzed, and had spoken no word. He lay in an upper chamber, tended by Assunta, and my wife had already written to his relatives in Lombardy, asking them to send for him home.
“Of what use to keep him?” she had asked me.
True! Of what use to give even roof-shelter to a poor old human creature, maimed, broken, and useless for evermore? After long years of faithful service, turn him out, cast him forth! If he die of neglect, starvation, and ill-usage, what matter?—he is a worn-out tool, his day is done—let him perish. I would not plead for him—why should I? I had made my own plans for his comfort—plans shortly to be carried out; and in the mean time Assunta nursed him tenderly as he lay speechless, with no more strength than a year-old baby, and only a bewildered pain in his upturned, lack-luster eyes. One incident occurred during these last days of my vengeance that struck a sharp pain to my heart, together with a sense of the bitterest anger. I had gone up to the villa somewhat early in the morning, and on crossing the lawn I saw a dark form stretched motionless on one of the paths that led directly up to the house. I went to examine it, and started back in horror—it was my dog Wyvis shot dead. His silky black head and forepaws were dabbled in blood—his honest brown eyes were glazed with the film of his dying agonies. Sickened and infuriated at the sight, I called to a gardener who was trimming the shrubbery.
“Who has done this?” I demanded.