There was certainly something very remarkable in the conduct of this Count Edna. No man could be more gentle. All men spoke of him with kindness; the ladies even spoke of him with affection; yet he seemed to be not only helpless but willingly so. He allowed this monster, who seemed to be his master, to torture his wife to the verge of insanity. He even allowed her to be driven to do and say very unreasonable things, and then let these very things be set down by the world as evidence of her insanity.
All this was not only remarkable but was also very unreasonable. In fact, had these things not been remarkable and even unreaonable, I do not know that I should have taken the pains to tell them
Murietta came next day early, even before the countess was yet in her carriage, and sat in the parlour and talked with the gentle count, for the old admiral was not yet to be seen, and talked of art and other things, and found him really in all respects, or to all appearances at least, a perfect gentleman.
He even assisted the countess to her cariage, lifted his hat as they drove away, and then stood on the steps looking after her.
All that afternoon, all the next afternoon, and many and many an afternoon, did Murietta sit by the silent countess as they drove out through one of the many great gates of the Eternal City and on to the Campagna or the green Sabine Hills.
Nothing was said, nothing transpired worth repeating, and the artist began to imagine that all his fears were groundless, idle, and bred of his own brain.
He enjoyed these drives thoroughly. How few people have the good sense to sit silent in the carriage as they drive through the groves, and let God speak!
All day these two would sit together as they whirled around the green hills or drove through the wood and out of the sun, and not one word would be spoken.
Every day, every drive, Murietta felt that he was going further and further away from Annette, and in his heart he was very glad, for he felt that he was once more becoming his own master.
The artist often met the count at the palace and elsewhere, and he was always very friendly, yet a little mysterious and reserved. He was often drunk, yet to all appearances a perfect gentleman and man of the world.
The old admiral, too, was often to be seen both in social circles, at the rides and elsewhere, and always he was the same imperious and insolent bully, both in action and expression, and always had a circle of his followers about him. At such times the Count Edna was a mere cipher, and was hardly to be heard. He became at such times, and even in the presence of the admiral a mere echo or shadow of this strong and half beast pirate of the land and brigand of the sea.
Still, the presence of this ponderous chin had lost its old terror to Marietta, and he had come to admit that there might be very much worse things in the world than a man who was always blustering about like a March wind, and swearing that he was a rough but honest sailor who always carried his heart in his hand.
Few things in the world are more formidble to the development of genius than this present pleasant life into which the artist had almost insensibly, and yet against his will, glided.
He became as familiar with every gate, every road, every one of the twenty beautiul drives in and all around Rome, as with his own narrow stairs, rows of cats, and blue Madonnas on the side of the Tarpeian Rock.
The countess would now drive down past his little tower on the Rock, send up her footman, and then without a word, without even a sound, save the rustle of the pink and rose silk robes that seemed to whisper pretty songs of sentiment and love, he would take his seat beside her, and then they would whirl away to the most unfrequented and most pleasant drive, and only stopping now and then for a glass of "Est est" or buns for the little Sunshine at some one of the wayside inns, they would spend full half of the alluring, balmy, beautiful day, siting there behind the strong spirited horses, watching the work of summer, the coming and going of strange men up and down the roads of Rome, the stacking up of the tall Indian corn in the fertile fields, the brown harvesters bending to the scythe, or would look away at the bent and curved new moon that hung in the west against the blue bent walls of heaven, as bright and clear as if it had just been cut and fashioned from new and polished silver.
"And this is best," said Murietta to himself often and over again "come what comes of it, I will not deny myself the gifts of the gods. I will no longer play the hermit. These fields are finer than the shadows of the Tarpeian Rock. There is rest and repose in this gorgeous beauty, and the strength and movement of these spirited horses gives me life and lets my blood run warm and natural. This beautiful, silent lady by my side is inspiration itself. I will take the gifts of the gods and be glad."
There was a great gathering of men and women outside the walls four or five miles to the south of the city, at a place called Old Rome.
This Old Rome is said to be the site of a city once as mighty as Rome itself when Rome was the capital of the Caesars. Yet all you see there now is a succession of mounds and long reaches of moles and little hills that certainly were not placed there by accident or by the sport of Nature.
These little mounds are topped in many cases by groves of olive, and sometimes by palm and pine and orange trees; though they are usually white with flocks of sheep and bare of anything save coats of grass. The people there are thin, sleepy, skin-clad shepherds with little white woolly and most vicious dogs.
As the countess and the artist drove upon this ground on this great gala day, there was a battle going on between a duke of the house of Rusk and a Hapsburg. Each prince had gathered his friends and followers about him, and then buying up all the oranges they could procure from the many little stands all along the road and around the grand stand and the raceourse, for this was the great day for the sports of the turf. They then began to pour in upon each other volley after volley of oranges.
Sometimes one party, with their hats or arms full of oranges, would sally forth from their fortress and attempt to carry the works of the enemy by storm, but would always be driven back hatless and hot, and sometimes with bleeding noses, to their own mound, where, perhaps, three or four thousand years before had stood as goreous, and high, and sacred a temple as anything now to be found on the face of the earth.
Ladies would laugh and lift their little hands and wave their handkerchiefs and cheer the successful party in a way that made one almost feel that it was real life, and quite in accord with human, or at least woman, nature.
The red flag shot up above the grand stand, where stood the king of Italy, under cover, with his courtiers around him; the word was given, and the dust of Old Rome trembled under the flying feet of a hundred splendid horses from that little wintry island away out yonder on the edge of the world, in the ultima Thule to where Caesar's soldiers hesitated to follow him.
And English riders, English owners, English everything, even the man who tiptoed up in the crowd and even climbed on to the wheel of the countess's carriage to get a glimpse of his favourite English horse, swore in English as he saw him dropping behind, and by that act drawing hard English coin from the pocket of his English backer.
All the world was here. The little mounds for miles around were black with armies of people gathered there to shout and clap their hands and toss their hats over the winner of the day, whoever he might be, after the fashion of the world.
The king applauded too. A stout, black man, in black clothes, with a black beard, and black bushy hair, that grew very low down on his forehead, he stood there with his naked brown hands clasped over the rail when the race was done, and looking down at the band that struck up the national air at once. He looked very tired of it all, and as if he was intolerably bored, and wanted to get back to his hills, in north Italy, and to his boar hunts in the Alps.
How black and ugly and brigandish he looked in his great black slouch hat, his plain, black, slovenly clothes, and with his monstrous black moustache curling up and out like the horns of a vicious black buflfalo bull.
"Santa Maria!" said a monk at the side of the carriage, as he crossed himself "he looks like the devil!"
Yet that fierce, ugly old man standing there stood with the weight of all new Italy on his shoulders. There was the look and the action of something more than the king in this man, standing there, trying to look pleased at the mob of a million strong, that had gathered there that day to waste the precious time, while half the fields of Italy lay fallow. He looked a very Titan; You felt that the ground would tremble when he moved. His very awkwardness and abandon was grace and strength and majesty. Amid the swarms of popinjays in satins and silks and lace and feathers, it was so refreshing to see this old grizzly standing there so perfectly individual, so solely original, so very much alone, so manly and so kingly. He is, perhaps, the only king today that has a throne.
The Count Paolini, with Miss Mollie and Mrs. Wopsus and the general, sat in a cariage but a little way to the left. They bowed to the countess, and the general and the count got down and elbowed their way through the crowd and came to pay their respects to the lady in pink.
How sweetly she smiled as they bowed before her and called her the countess!
Murietta marked this more than ever on that day. He had seen and often remarked this before; but today it struck him with such singular clearness that he made a note of it in his mind, and it took place there as the key by which a mystery might be unavelled.
When these gentlemen withdrew, and again as they bowed themselves away reeatedly called her the countess, she again smiled and seemed more satisfied with this common appellation than with all the splendid scene before her, or all the Italian compliments the Count Paolini had paid her beauty and her wit that day.
As an American of the lesser Republic speaking to an American of the greater Republic, Murietta had used this lady's title as little as possible when addressing her. He now called her the countess as they sat there remarking on the appearance of the king. And this man, who was as dull and ignorant in his understanding and knowedge of women as a boy not yet from school, began to see at last the vulnerable point in this sweet creature's heart, and the place where the arrow had entered.
"Let me see," he mused, as his face rested on his upturned hand, and he lounged back in the carriage and looked at the king, who still stood there clutching on to the rail before him, and looking down at the fiddlers and pipers in gold and lace and tassels and cocks' feathers. "Let me see. Here was a young American girl, full of romance, and fed on Italian novels written by men who never saw Italy, and all glitterng with gems and gold, and set with high sounding names of titled men who were always the soul of chivalry and honour. She was a child of fortune, and blessed with beauty, and therefore flattered on every hand, till her little untried brain was fairly turned.
"Then there came this Italian or foreign count of whatever country he may be, and his gentle manners, and his sweet and ininuating nature, and his title most of all, made him an object of interest. Then this man, this foreign count, a Brother of the Altar, sat down before her as a general would sit down before a besieged town; he made his calculations with the same coolness, the same deliberation, the same estimation of the loss of time, of money, and other operations, as a general would make in a campaign or a siege; counted the probabilities of gain, the possibilities of loss, and so sat down, and so besieged and won and carried her away to his own land. And then," continued the artist, following up his train of fancy, "we will suppose the lady, when it was too late, discovered her fearful mistake, but still fond and proud of her rank and title, cherished it, was more pleased with it than anything else, despite the awful price she had paid for it; and so in the face of the world kept her secrets, and stood between her spouse and his exposure."
What the lady at his side was thinking of or guessing at, no one may know, for she was a wonderful woman — a woman without curiosity, and a woman who could keep silent for a month, and who could keep her secrets for ever.
The band ceased playing, the king with a sigh of relief loosed his hooked hands from the railing before him, and turned his broad shoulders to our party in the carriage, and walked to the other side of the stand, for the red flag was again flying, and the Engish horses were again making the dust of Old Rome fly in the face of the king of New Italy.
"Note him well, Guiseppe! Jesus! if you were only as good a hand with a pistol as you are with a plate of maccaroni, you might rid the earth of the black brute even at this distance, and then take shelter under a priest's gown, and never once be suspected. Christ! what a splendid opportunity"
"Oh!" whispered Guiseppe, "but you are always urging others to do things that you never dream of daring to do yourself."
"Guiseppe, a general does not touch a musket or apply the match. I am the leader of the party. I cannot afford to do this thing, nor can the party afford to allow me to do it."
Murietta heard all this distinctly, although it was whispered and hissed between the teeth, and back behind the carriage of the countess. Long training and experience on the border, where men lie awake at night listening for the tawny enemy, where lives depend on the acuteness of the ear, had made him quick to hear and understand expressions that to other ears at that disance had not been even a whisper.
And yet the countess felt that this man, these men, were there, for she began to grow nervous and turn pale, and she leaned forward and whispered to her little boy as he stood trying to catch a glimpse of the flying horses above the sea of excitedi men.
Little Sunshine pulled suddenly at the string, and the footman sprang down and got some officers to assist him in turning the horses through the crowd, and then again climbed back to the box, and the carriage began to move, and the countess began to take her rosy colour again, and the rich lips took on the old sweet smile of blended sadness and unmeasured love.
"Guiseppe, I am the leader. You are to trust me. I am a man who carries his heart in his—"
The carriage was whirling away, and the countess looked back and saw these two men scowling at each other like two wolves showing their teeth above their bloody prey.
Start reading Chapter 32 ofThe One Fair Lady