Chapter 4

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_ CHAPTER IV

The villas along the shore towards Posilippo face the sun all day in winter, for they look due south from the water's edge, and their marble steps lead down into the tideless sea, as though it were a landlocked lagoon or a Swiss lake. In winter the roses blossom amongst the laurels, and before the rose leaves are all fallen the violets peep out in the borders; the broad, fan-like palms stand unsheltered in the south wind, and the oranges and lemons are left hanging on the trees for beauty's sake. There are but two changes in the year, from spring to summer, and from summer back to spring.

It is sometimes cold in Naples, high up in the city, when the northeast wind comes screaming from the snowy Abruzzi, and when Vesuvius is clad in white almost to the lower villages. In Naples it is sometimes dreary when the water-laden southwest sends up its mountains of black clouds. But somehow in soft Posilippo the wind is tempered and the rain seems but a shower, and spring and summer, summer and spring, ever join hands amongst the ilexes and the laurels and the orange trees.

On this day it was all summer, for there was not a cloud in the air nor a whitecap on the sea as the water gently lapped against the steps at the foot of Bianca Corleone's garden. It was so warm that she was sitting there herself, a book unread on her knees, her marvellous face towards the day, her small feet resting on the lower rail of another chair before her, just because the gravel might possibly be damp.

Beside her, and turned towards her, looking earnestly to her averted eyes, sat Pietro Ghisleri, the man who many years afterwards married Lady Herbert Arden, of whom many have heard,--a man young at that time and not world-worn as he was later, nor prematurely gaunt and weather-beaten. He was only five-and-twenty years of age, then, and the beautiful Bianca was but twenty-one, and had already been married two years to Corleone. But the suffering of a lifetime had been crushed into those two years; for Corleone was bad, from his head to his heart, all through, and she had believed that she loved him.

Then, half broken-hearted, she had listened to Ghisleri; and he loved her truly, with all his heart. Even society found little to say at that, and perhaps there was little enough to be said. To all intents and purposes, Corleone had abandoned her, and Ghisleri was often with her. It was not until later that her brother, Gianforte Campodonico, lifted up his hand against Ghisleri for the first time.

So Ghisleri was sitting beside Bianca on that morning, in her garden, when there was a sound of wheels, behind the house; and then, unannounced, as one familiar with the place, Veronica Serra came swiftly down the walk towards the pair. Ghisleri rose to his feet,--a tall, fair man, sunburnt, lean and strong, with bright blue eyes,--and Bianca turned in her chair, with a smile, and held out her hand, as she sat, to the young girl.

"You do not mind?" asked Veronica, smiling innocently. "Am I not interrupting you?"

"No, dear--no." A very faint dawn of colour rose in Bianca's almost unnatural pallor.

"Something so strange has happened," said Veronica.

Then she nodded to Pietro Ghisleri, realizing that she had forgotten him. He moved forward for her the chair on which he had been sitting, while he continued to stand. Veronica had often met him there before.

"Donna Veronica has something to say to you," he said to Bianca. "If you will allow me, I will go up to the stable and look at that dog."

Bianca nodded, as though it were a matter of course that Pietro should look after her dogs when there was anything the matter with them, and Veronica sat down. Her expression was strange, Bianca thought, as though she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Yet she looked fresh and well and not tired. The girl told her story in half a dozen words, as soon as Ghisleri was out of hearing.

"They want me to marry Bosio," she said, and then drew breath, holding both of Bianca's hands and looking into her eyes.

"You? Marry Bosio Macomer? Oh! no--Veronica--no!"

Bianca's voice expressed the greatest apprehension, for Veronica was almost her only intimate friend. Veronica seemed surprised.

"Why not?" she asked. "That is, if I wished to. Why do you speak in that way? Do you know anything about him which I do not know? You must have some reason."

Bianca's exquisite face grew calm and grave, and she looked away, and waited some seconds before she spoke. The sins of the earth were familiar to her before her time, and suffering and the payment. But Veronica was a child.

"It seems unfitting," she said quietly. "He is almost like your uncle. Of course, one may marry one's uncle--but he is too old for you, dear. And, after all, with your name, and all you have--"

"But I like Bosio," answered Veronica, simply. "He is always good to me. I talk with him a great deal. And he is really not old, though his hair is a little grey. I think I would perhaps rather have him just for a friend, instead of a husband. But then, he would be both. I do not know what to do, so I came to you for advice."

"Why do you not marry Gianluca della Spina?" asked Bianca, suddenly.

"Don Gianluca?" repeated Veronica, rather blankly. "Why him, particularly? I have only seen him three or four times."

"He is dying of love for you, my dear," said Bianca. "At least, every one says so. I have heard it from Taquisara and from Signor Ghisleri, who are friends of his."

"Dying of love for me?" Veronica broke out in a girlish laugh. "How absurd! Why does he not ask for me, if that is true? Not that I would ever marry him! He is like a Perugino angel, with his yellow hair and blue eyes."

She laughed again. Bianca knew from Ghisleri that Gianluca's father had done his best to bring about the marriage. She was amazed to find that Veronica knew nothing of the negotiations.

"It is very strange," she said thoughtfully, and hesitating as to how much she should tell of what she had heard.

"What is strange?" asked the young girl.

"That you should not have known about Gianluca. They go to see him every day. He is really madly in love with you, and is positively ill about it. That is why I say that you should marry him, if you marry at all--but not your uncle Bosio."

"He is not my uncle," said Veronica. "He is my aunt's brother-in-law."

"It is the same thing--"

"No. It is not the same. Tell me all about Don Gianluca. It is interesting--I feel like a heroine in a book--a man dying for love of me, whom I scarcely know! It is too ridiculous! He must be in love with my fortune, as my aunt says that so many people are."

"No, dear," said Bianca, gravely, "do not say that. It is for yourself, and he does not need your fortune."

"I did not mean to say anything unkind," answered Veronica. "But I scarcely know him--and I have heard nothing about it. Have they spoken of the marriage?"

"Yes."

They were interrupted by a servant, who came quickly down from the house. The man asked if the princess would receive Baron Taquisara. Bianca ordered him to be admitted, and told the man to ask Ghisleri to come back from the stables.

"Do you know Taquisara?" she asked Veronica.

"A Sicilian? With a bronze face and fiery eyes? I have seen him once or twice at balls, I think. Yes--he was introduced to me somewhere. I remember him because they say he is descended from Tancred."

"Yes," said Bianca. "I could not refuse to receive him, because Signor Ghisleri is here. They will both go away before long, and then we can talk. Can you stay to breakfast with me?"

"Oh, no! I should not dare to do that!" Veronica laughed a little. "No one knows where I am," she added. "My aunt thinks I have gone for a drive to think over the matter. I just pulled down the curtain of the brougham and told the man to bring me here--all alone."

At this moment Taquisara and Ghisleri appeared on the gravel path, walking side by side, two men strongly contrasted with each other, Italians of the Lombard and the Saracen types, fine specimens both, in the prime of youth and strength. Bianca gave the Sicilian her hand, and he bowed gravely to Veronica. Ghisleri brought out more chairs, and without the slightest hesitation sat down beside Bianca, forcing Taquisara to place himself near the young girl.

Taquisara was a man almost incapable of anything like social timidity, in whatever position he might be placed, and he was in reality delighted at thus being thrust upon Donna Veronica, from whom he felt sure that he should learn something about the projected marriage. For he had great and unaffected confidence in himself. But he hesitated a moment before he spoke, for he did not now remember that he had ever before entered intentionally into a serious conversation with a young girl, in the whole course of his life. The customs of the society in which he lived made such things well-nigh impossible. As usual with him, he meditated going straight to the matter in hand, and he only paused to consider what words he should use. Veronica, as she had been taught to do in such a position, looked vacantly before her at the roots of the trees, waiting for him to say something.

He had not seen her, except from a distance, since Gianluca had fallen so madly in love with her, and while she looked away from him, his bold eyes scrutinized her face. He saw what she had seen, when she had looked into the glass on the previous evening--neither more nor less, except that she was dressed for walking, and something feathery was around her slender throat--and she wore a hat, which, in her own opinion, changed her appearance very much. But, as he looked, he was aware that there was more in her face than he had supposed.

There was something in the expression which was, all at once, far more beautiful to him, than anything he had ever discovered in the sad and faultless features of the already famous beauty who sat beside her. Unconsciously, as he realized it, he forgot that he was expected to speak.

Then, wondering at his silence, and conscious of his gaze, Veronica turned her face to his, with a shy look of girlish inquiry, and their eyes met. Taquisara was too dark to blush, but to his own surprise he felt that the blood had mounted in his face, and in Veronica's own thin, young cheeks there was a faint and lovely tinge which lasted but a moment and then faded, coming again more strongly as she turned her eyes away. Then he felt that he must speak. Ghisleri and Bianca, on the other side, had begun at once to talk, and their voices, unknown to themselves, had sunk to a low key.

"I am very glad I have met you here, this morning, Donna Veronica," said Taquisara, leaning forward so as to speak close to her, but looking down at the gravel under his feet. "I had something especial to say to you."

Veronica glanced at him, half startled. His tone and manner were quite different from anything she had hitherto heard and seen. She saw that he was not looking at her, and her eyes went back to the roots of the trees.

"Yes," she said, almost inaudibly, for she did not know whether he expected her to say anything.

"I have a very good friend, Donna Veronica," he continued; "I have been with him this morning. You have heard his name often of late, I think, and you know him--Gianluca della Spina."

Veronica started a little, and again the colour came and went in her delicate face.

"Yes," she said. "I--I know him a little."

"He loves you, Donna Veronica," Taquisara said, his voice softening almost to a whisper, for he did not wish Bianca Corleone to hear him. "He loves you so much that he is almost dangerously ill--indeed, I think it is dangerous--because you will not marry him."

He paused to see what she would do. She quickly turned her startled eyes to him, and her lips parted, but she said nothing. He raised his face and met her look as he went on.

"Last night, his father was at your house, and he was told that there was no hope, because you were betrothed to Count Bosio Macomer."

"They told him that?" asked Veronica, quickly, and the colour mounted a third time in her cheeks. "But it is not true!" she added; and her eyes set themselves sharply, for she was angry.

"No," said Taquisara, "I know that it is not quite true, for I have been to see Count Bosio. I was there half an hour ago."

"You have quarrelled?" asked Veronica, in sudden anxiety.

"Quarrelled? no. Why should we quarrel? He gave me to understand that nothing was settled. I thanked him, and came away. I did not hope to see you; but I knew that the Princess Corleone was your best friend, as I am Gianluca's. I thought I would speak to her. Since, by a miracle, we have met, I have spoken directly to you. Do you forgive me? I hope so, though I daresay that no mere acquaintance has ever talked as I am talking. If you blame me, remember that it is for Gianluca, that he is my friend, that he knows nothing of my speaking to you, since you and I have met by chance, and that he is perhaps dying--dying for you, Donna Veronica."

The girl's face was white and grave now, for Taquisara spoke in earnest.

"How dreadful!" she exclaimed.

Bianca turned her head, for she was not so much absorbed in her conversation with Ghisleri as not to have noticed that Veronica and Taquisara were speaking almost in whispers, which was strange conduct for a young girl with a mere acquaintance, to say the least of it.

"What is so dreadful?" she asked, with a smile.

"Oh!--nothing," answered Veronica, glancing at her, and turning back instantly to Taquisara.

A shade of annoyance was in his face, and Veronica felt suddenly that this was the first real crisis in her life, and that she must hear all he had to say, to the end, at any cost of propriety.

"Come!" she said to Taquisara.

She rose as calmly as a married woman, many years older than she, might have done, and Taquisara was on his feet at the same moment. She led the way down to the marble steps that descended to the sea, and stood on the uppermost one, looking out. Bianca and Ghisleri watched her in surprise and Bianca made a slight movement, as though to follow, but then leaned back again. There was then, and still is, a very strong feeling in Southern Italy against allowing a young girl to be out of earshot with a man.

Though Bianca and Veronica had been children, together, and there was little difference of age between them, Bianca felt that, as the married woman, she was responsible for the observance of social custom. But in a moment she realized that Taquisara was talking of Gianluca, and that anything would be better than to allow Veronica to marry Bosio Macomer.

"I understand," she said to Ghisleri; "let them alone. It is better, so long as only you and I see it."

Down by the steps, Veronica stood very still, looking out over the blue water, and Taquisara was beside her. She waited for him to speak again, sure that he had not said all.

"Such things seem improbable in these days," he said quietly. "You say that it is dreadful. It is. I have seen it, and have been with him day after day. I am not very sensitive, as a rule, but I have had a strange impression which I shall never forget. Gianluca and I met when we were serving our time as volunteers. He was unlike the rest of us, even then. That was why we became friends--because he was unlike me, I suppose."

"Unlike--in what way?" asked Veronica, still looking at the sea.

"It is hard to explain. He is a man of ideals, a religious man, a good man." Taquisara smiled gravely. "That was enough to make him quite different from us all, was it not?"

"I do not know," said the young girl. "Are all men bad, as a rule?"

"Perhaps," answered the Sicilian, shortly. "At all events, Gianluca was not. One saw that all the little that was bad in his life was only a jest, while all the much that was good was real and true."

"You are indeed his friend," said Veronica, softly.

She was struck by the beauty of what the man had said so plainly and unaffectedly.

"Yes, I am his friend," replied Taquisara. "One of his friends, say,--for he has many. I am his friend as you are the friend of Donna Bianca. You understand that, do you not? And you understand that there is nothing you would not do for a friend? Not out of mere obligation, because your friend has done much for you, but just for friendship--love, if you choose to call it so. I have heard people speak eloquently of friendship--so have you perhaps. And we both understand what it means, though many do not. That is why I speak as I do, and if I do not speak well, you must forgive me, and feel the meaning I cannot express to your ears. Gianluca loves you, Donna Veronica, as men very rarely love women, so immensely, so strongly, that his love is burning up his life in him--and it has all been kept from you for some reason or other, while your relations are doing their best to make you marry Bosio Macomer, who can no more be compared with Gianluca della Spina than--"

He checked himself, for he felt that his tone was contemptuous, and remembered that Veronica might perhaps like Bosio. She was listening, her eyes fixed on the distance, her mind wide open to the new experience of life which had come so unexpectedly.

"He cannot be compared with Gianluca," continued Taquisara, modifying his sentence and omitting whatever simile had presented itself in his thoughts. "If you knew Gianluca, you would understand. It is because I know him well that I speak for him, that I implore you, pray you, beseech you, to see him before you consent to marry Count Bosio--"

"To see him!" exclaimed Veronica, startled at the sudden proposition, which was a blow to every tradition she had ever learned.

But the Sicilian was not a man to hesitate at trifles where women were concerned, nor men either.

"Yes--to see him!" he answered with a certain vehemence. "Is it a sin? Is it a crime? Is it dishonourable? Why should you cry out? What is society that it should take you young girls by the throat, like martyrs, and chain you with proprieties to the stake of its rigid law--to be burnt to death afterwards by slow fire, like your best friend there, Donna Bianca? Ah--you understand that. You know her life, and I know it too. It is the life--or the death--to which you may look forward if you will neither open your eyes to see, nor raise your hand to guard yourself. And you cry out in outraged horror at the idea of seeing Gianluca della Spina here, in this garden, by these steps, under God's sunlight, as you see me here to-day by accident. It seems to you--what shall I say?--unladylike!" Taquisara laughed scornfully. "What does it matter whether you are unladylike or not, so long as you are womanly, and kind, and brave? I am telling you truths you have never heard, but you have a woman's right to hear them, whatever you may think of me. And I speak for another. I have the holy right to say for him, for his life, for his happiness, all that I would not say for myself, perhaps. And I do say, what is to prevent Gianluca from being here to-morrow, or this very afternoon, as I am here now, and why should it be such a dreadful thing for you to come here, knowing that you will meet him? Do you think that he would not give the last drop of his blood, at one word from your lips, to save you from trouble, or danger, or insult? Do you think, if he knew how I am speaking to you--speaking roughly, perhaps, because I am rough--he would not turn upon me, his friend, who am fighting for his life, and quarrel with me, and disown me, because my roughness comes near you and may offend you? You do not know him. How should you? But because you do not know him and cannot guess how he loves you, do not throw his life away without seeing it, without understanding what you despise, and learning that it is far above your contempt--a noble life, an honest life, a true-hearted young life, which may be lived out for you only--and, for you, I think it would be worth living."

Taquisara was a man who could be in earnest for his friend, and there was a strong vibration in his low voice which few could have heard with indifference. While he was speaking and forcing the appeal of his honest black eyes upon Veronica's face, she could not help slowly turning to meet them, and her lips parted a little as though in wonder, while she drank in eagerly the words he spoke. It was the first time in her life that she had ever heard a man speak to her of love, and, in his rough eloquence, he spoke well and strongly, though it was not for himself. In his own cause, the words might not have come so readily, but they were not now the less evidently sincere, because they were many. She was glad that she had boldly risen, and left Bianca's side, in order to hear him. But when he paused, she scarcely knew what to answer. She wanted to hear more. It was as though a dawn were rising, high and clear, in the dim country through which childhood had led her, and she longed suddenly for the full light of broad day.

"Indeed, you speak as though you loved him," she said.

"Yes, but I am trying to tell you how he loves you, and I cannot, though I know it all. You must hear it for yourself, you must see him, you must know him--"

"But it is impossible--" Veronica's protest broke off rather weakly in the middle.

"It is impossible that you should be here to-morrow at this hour? Perhaps--I do not know. But to-morrow at this hour Gianluca will be here, though he has not been able to leave the house for a week; and if you come, all the impossibility is gone. It is as simple as that--"

"That is an appointment--with a man--"

Again the blood rushed to the young girl's face but this time it was genuine shame of doing a thing which she had been taught to think the most dreadful in the whole world.

"An appointment!" Taquisara laughed contemptuously. "Do you not come often to see the Princess Corleone? You will come again. And Gianluca will come often, too--and if you chance to meet to-morrow, it will be an accident of fate, that is all, as you chanced to see me here to-day. You cannot forbid him to come here. You cannot, without a reason, ask Donna Bianca to refuse to receive him--"

"Oh!--if she ever guessed--" Veronica checked herself, still blushing, but Taquisara was too sincerely in earnest to smile at the slip she had made.

"That is all," he said. "There is neither appointment, nor engagement, nor anything but the possibility of a meeting which you cannot be sure of avoiding, unless you never come to see your friend, or unless you give her some unjust reason for not letting him come, in case he calls. There is nothing but chance. How can I tell whether you will come to-morrow, or not? I shall perhaps never know, for I shall not come with him. I have been here to-day--what excuse could I give for calling again to-morrow? Donna Bianca would think it strange. I can hope, for his sake. I can tell you that no woman has the right to throw away such love as his, to ruin such a life as his, to break such a heart without a thought and without so much as hearing the man speak--whatever this wretched society in which we live may say about proprieties and rights and wrongs, and the difference between the proper behaviour for young girls and married women. This is God's earth, Donna Veronica--not society's!"

Veronica said nothing; but there was perplexity in her face, and she looked down, and pulled at one finger of her glove. She was wondering whether, if she came on the next day, and stood with Gianluca della Spina on that very spot, he would speak for himself as strongly and well as his friend had been speaking for him.

Somehow, she doubted it, and somehow, too, she knew that if by magic Taquisara should all at once turn out to be the real Gianluca,--not the Gianluca she knew,--she should be better satisfied with the world. For as things seemed just then, she was not satisfied at all, and the future was more dim and uncertain than ever. Still she looked down, thinking, and Taquisara glanced at her occasionally, and respected her silence.

"You do not know Bosio Macomer," she said, at last. "Or you know him little. If you chanced to be his friend, instead of Don Gianluca's, you could speak as eloquently for him."

"I think not," answered Taquisara. And his lip curled a little, though she did not see the expression.

"Why not? You do not know him. How can you tell? A little while ago, you said that he was not to be compared to your friend. How can you be so sure? Everything is not written in men's faces."

"I judge as I can, from what I see and know."

"So do I."

"From seeing and knowing the one and not the other. That is it. All I ask is that you will wait until you know both, before you make up your mind--a week--no more, if you can spare no more. It is not for me to tell you what your rights are, that you are not in the position of the average young girl, just from the convent, who accepts the choice her father and mother make for her--because, perhaps, she may never have another; and, at all events, because she cannot choose. You have the world to choose from, and--forgive me for saying it--you have no one to choose for you but those who are interested in the choice. May I speak?"

She hesitated, and their eyes met for a moment.

"Yes," she said suddenly.

"Count Bosio may be the best of men. I do not know. But he is the middle-aged, younger brother of Count Macomer, with a very slender fortune of his own and a position no better than the rest of us. If he marries you, he becomes Prince of Acireale, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a Grandee of Spain of the First Class--and many times a millionnaire. For you have all that to give the man you marry. Grant that he is the best of men. Is his brother wholly disinterested? I speak plainly. It is rumoured that Count Macomer has lost most of his fortune in speculations. I do not know whether that is true. Even if it is not, what was all his fortune compared to what it would mean to him if his brother held yours?"

"My uncle never speculated in his life!" answered Veronica, rather indignantly.

"Grant that. The other side remains. And the countess? Is she wholly disinterested? Has she been disappointed by the marriage she made, or not? She was born a Serra, like yourself, and she married Macomer in the days of the old court, when he was a favourite with the old king and had a brilliant position, and people said that he might be one of the first men in the kingdom. But Garibaldi swept all that away, and Macomer's chances with it, and the countess is a disappointed woman, for her husband has remained just what he always was--plain Count Macomer, with his name and his palace, neither of them extraordinary. Truly, Donna Veronica, though you may refuse to speak to me again for what I say, I will dare to tell you that you must be very unsuspicious! They conceal from you the honourable offer of such a man as Gianluca della Spina, the eldest son of a great old house, and they announce your betrothal with Count Bosio before either you or he know of it. One need not be very distrustful to think all that strange--even granting that Count Bosio is the best of men, a matter of which you are a judge."

"I would rather that you should not say those things to me," said Veronica, a little pale, and turning half round as though she would go back to Bianca and Ghisleri.

"Forgive me--for I have risked such opinion of me as you may have, to say them. There may be reasonable doubt about them. But of the rest--there is no doubt. There is a man's life in it, and death is beyond doubts, and a love that can take a man and tear him and hurt him until he dies has a right to a woman's hearing--and to her charity--before she throws it away. I ask no forgiveness of you for saying that. Gianluca will come to-morrow at this time, and he will come again until he sees you. I have kept you too long, Donna Veronica, and you have been kind in listening to me. If you need service in your life, use mine."

She said nothing, but gravely inclined her head a little when she had once more looked into his eyes, before she turned towards Bianca and walked slowly up the short, broad path by his side. _

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