III.
DIDO AND ÆNEAS.
May repeated his visit of condolence every day for several weeks. At the end of that time the season at Baden-Baden was drawing to a close, and it became necessary that the countess should betake herself and her sorrowing heart to some other refuge. May knew this, and it troubled him.
For he now felt that he not only admired Mme. de Valska as a patriot, but that he loved her as an exceedingly beautiful and fascinating woman. Surely, here was the heroine of his youthful dreams—a life that were a poet’s ideal.
To link himself with her and her noble aims, to be a Byron without the loneliness, to combine fame in future history with present domestic bliss—what a career!
He loved the countess, he adored her; and he fancied that she deigned to be not indifferent to his devotion, to his sympathy. But—there was the shadow of the late count.
And the countess seemed much broken by his death. True, she no longer gave way to wild bursts of passion; she never wept; in fact, in Austin’s presence, she rarely mentioned him. But there was a sadness, a weak and lonely way about her, as if she could not live without her Serge’s protecting arm. It must have been a moral support, as he could have done but little from his Siberian mine; but, whereas she used to be brave, enterprising, facing the world alone, now she seemed helpless, confiding, less heroic, perhaps, but still more womanly. Austin only loved her the more for that And it emboldened him a little. After all, her husband had been dead a year and a half, though she had only known of it a few weeks. He determined to speak. Why should his life’s happiness—possibly hers—be wrecked upon a mere scruple of etiquette?
He took his opportunity, one day, when she spoke of Italy. (Now, that the count was dead, she seemed to think less of unhappy Poland, and more of unredeemed Italy; as was natural, she being a Cascadegli.) He took her hands at the same time, and begged that she would redeem him with Italy. His life, his fortune, were at her service, should she but give him the right to protect her, and fight her battles for her always. “I know,” he added earnestly, “how your heart still bleeds for your noble husband. But your duty is to your country, to yourself. And remember, though you heard of it but yesterday, the Count Polacco has been dead a year and a half.”
“Nineteen months,” sighed the countess, with a sob, going him four weeks better. And before he left the room they were engaged. He did not go to bed that night; but wandered in the moonlight, treading as on clouds. Favored young man!
In the morning, he noticed with delight that she had laid aside her long crape veil. Already, said she, her country called for her; she must recommence her labors, and the deep mourning would attract too much notice. May had vaguely fancied she would start at once for Milan or Warsaw, and after a few months’ delay he would meet her, and they would have a quiet marriage ceremony. But she explained to him that the true arena of her labors was in Paris. Here was the focus of conspiracies; here she must live and have a salon, and call together her devoted countrymen. Here she would need his protection, and, with his American passport, he could safely visit her oppressed fatherland, when events required action on the spot.
Obviously, as he recognized with joy, this plan made it necessary for them to be married immediately. But then he must speak to her of his uncle’s will. Not that it mattered much; he was quite ready to renounce fortune, even life, for her; but she must know that they would not be rich. It was a mere formality; but it must be done. So he told her of the curious will; and how, if he married before August the fourteenth, 1886, he was to lose all his uncle’s property, even to what remained of the celebrated Eclipse claret. But then, what was money? Particularly to them, who had no other aims than love and patriotism; both commodities not to be bought, or measured in sterling exchange or napoleons. But the countess seemed to attach much weight to May’s communication.
Money, alas! was in these sordid times necessary, even for patriotic revolutions. The wheels must be greased, even when Bucephalus drew the chariot. Still, this was not the essential. She was quite willing to share her small fortune with the man whom she loved; but how could she bear to ruin him—to make her alliance his sacrifice? Suppose he should ever repent his action? And here May began to make his oaths eternal; but she stopped him. Was there no other way? Could there be no escape, no legal device? Lawyers would do almost anything, if paid enough. But May shook his head, and pressed again her hand to his lips; and her dark eyes brimmed with tears.
She, for herself, would be willing to suffer him as her adorer, to trust him as her knight, her follower, as he once had proposed before. And, by that arrangement, he would not lose the fortune. But what would the world say—the cold and heartless world? And she looked at May imploringly, as if for advice.
And May had to admit, in answer, that the world would be likely to make itself as disagreeable as usual under similar circumstances—particularly, now that the unhappy count was dead, and could no longer defend his heroic consort from the spite of petty spirits. The moral support was something, after all. May had true Boston reverence for what the world said; and it never occurred to him that even a heroine, who had braved two emperors, might brave its verdict.
For some moments neither spoke. What was there to say? But the silence grew oppressive; and at last she broke it with a cry.
“Farewell, then,” said she.
But at this May broke out with a round oath. Farewell it should never be. What cared he for his uncle’s fortune, or for the estate in Brookline, when his future lay in Poland? He would have a little left; he could win more by his own exertions. For a moment his impetuosity almost overbore her resistance. But then the Paris salon was a necessity; and half of her own estate and all of poor Polacco’s had been seized by foreign despots. She would think it over. She would give him an answer that night. And then there came a lover’s parting; and May went back to his hotel, not wholly desperate, and got the engagement-ring he had ordered, and sent it to her. It was of small diamonds; but then there was a necklace, sent from Paris, of perfect Oriental pearls. A woman could afford to get engaged once a month, for such a necklace.
And he had gone back that evening, and he had found a letter. The countess had gone, leaving the note behind her. It was edged with deep black; and May took it now from his pocket-book, yellow and worn, with a smile that would have been cynical had it not been slightly nervous.
“Très-cher!” it began, “I cannot bear” (it was all in French, but we will make clumsy English of the countess’s delicate phrase, as did May, when he read it now) “that your love for me should be your ruin. It is too late for me to deny that you also have my heart; I can only fly. Otherwise my woman’s weakness would destroy either you or myself. I shall go by the morning train to Frankfurt, where I shall stop two days. If you do not wish to betray me, seek not my refuge out. I shall keep the ring as a pledge” (she says nothing about the necklace, it occurred to May, at this late date)—“a pledge that I shall be faithful to you, as, I hope, you to me. For what are six or seven years?” (At her age! thought May, with a shudder.) “I will devote them to my unhappy countrymen.” (Compatriotes was the original, which may be feminine.) “But wait for me until you are free; and perhaps, who knows? my Italy redeemed! I will join you, and be one with you forever. Meantime you will travel, possibly forget me! But on the fourteenth of August, 1886, you will be at home. On that day you will hear from me!”
May laid the letter down and shuddered. This was most unquestionably the fourteenth day of August in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-six. He seized nervously the glass of claret; but, as he raised it to his lips, looked through the blinds, in the direction of the house. His second glass of claret fell unheeded to the floor.
A carriage was standing before the front door, and beside it stood a footman in livery.