Montalto

“ Maria’s face changed, and she looked down at her plate.
‘Why not?’ asked her husband, smiling again.
‘Because I couldn’t be, unless you were dead. And that’s ridiculous!’
‘We shall see, my boy, we shall see,’ answered Montalto. [279] ‘At all events we need not talk about dying yet. You are quite right about that.’
The words made a deep impression on Maria, who knew that he was making a new will. He could only mean that Leone was to have Montalto, which it would have been in his power to leave to another branch of his family, or indeed to any one he pleased; and Montalto meant everything. ”

“ Montalto was such a man. His power of keeping his own counsel without telling an untruth was amazing; and [336] his own counsel was not always wise. It was this characteristic of his which had twice suggested to Maria, in moments of despair, that he had come back to revenge himself upon her by systematically torturing her to death. Mediocrity is never so exasperating as when it affects to be inscrutable.
‘I have not thought it best to talk much with you about the letters, my dear,’ Montalto said. ”

“ Before they left Montalto her husband inquired as to the result of her observation of the man.
‘I cannot help believing that he is now perfectly honest and devoted to your interests,’ she said. ‘That is the impression he makes on me, and I do not think it will change.’
‘Then I shall take him to Rome,’ Montalto answered without hesitation. ‘Our property there is in a disgraceful state and is not yielding much more than the half of what it should. Schmidt is the only man I have under my hand who can set matters right, and he shall go to work at once.’
‘I agree with you,’ Maria said quietly. ”

“ On that very night Montalto fell in love with her, and she with Baldassare del Castiglione, whom she had called Balduccio, and who had called her Maria, ever since they had known each other as little children. On that night she had felt that he was a man, and no longer a boy. It was the first time she had seen him in his new officer’s uniform, for it was not a week since he had got his commission. ”

“ Why should any one make a fuss because a small boy called Leone Silani di Montalto had blue eyes instead of brown or black ones? Was it admissible that not one of the Montalto ancestors, since the First Crusade, should have had blue eyes, to account for Leone’s? Was nature to be allowed no latitude in such little matters? And so forth; and so on; and more to the same effect, and to the credit of Diego, Maria, and Leone di Montalto, happily reunited in their own home. ”

“ He was so excessively scrupulous that Maria guessed he must have some serious ground for his slight suspicion of the man he was trusting. The question began to interest her, if only as a study of her husband’s character.
‘Really, Diego,’ she said, ‘if you wish me to form any reasonable judgment you must tell me something more than this. What has the man done to make you doubt him?’
Montalto looked at his wife thoughtfully before he answered. ”

“ If Baldassare del Castiglione had been the wretch she had the courage to tell him he was when she bade him leave her for ever, Maria Montalto would not have hesitated an instant. He should have gone where justice sends such men, and she would have asked her husband to let her end her days out of the sight of the world she had known. ”

“ It was a satisfaction to see such an important couple reconciled again and living peaceably together; everybody had something to repent of in life, and most people had something to conceal; Maria had repented and Montalto had covered up the spot on his honour, with as much tact and dignity as were respectively consistent with a stained escutcheon and a contrite heart ”

“ Montalto knows how you have lived and is not unjust nor ungrateful. But for his mother, I think a reconciliation would be possible.’
Maria started at the words, and turned even paler than before.
‘A reconciliation!’ she cried in a low and frightened voice.
‘Yes,’ answered Don Ippolito, who had resumed his seat. ‘He loves you still. It is my firm belief that he has never bestowed a thought on any other woman since he first wished to marry you. I know beyond all doubt that since he left you he has led a life such as few men of the world ever lead. ”

“ Montalto turned to her and spoke very slowly.
‘I shall believe every word you tell me. You never told me an untruth in your life.’
‘No, never. But I thank you for trusting me now. It is not every man that would. After he came back’—she was careful not to mention Castiglione’s name after the first time—‘I saw him again and again; I thought I hated him, Diego, but I loved him still.’
It was hard to say, but perhaps it was harder to hear. Yet her husband had never known how she had deceived herself into believing that she hated Castiglione, and he did not turn upon her as she had expected. ”

“ In the evening, when Montalto had told her the political news he had read before dinner, and had opened a third Havana cigarette to roll it over again in French paper, Maria told him what Schmidt had said. Montalto was naturally as punctual in all his little ways as his wife was rapidly becoming by acquired habit. The post came late in the afternoon, and he always spent half an hour in reading the newspapers before he dressed for dinner. ”

“ Leone rode with Montalto every day, and by and by he was taught to hold a real gun in the right way, and then to shoot; and at last Montalto took him out one day and he fired his first shot at a pheasant and missed, but he killed a bird the second time, and was the happiest boy in the world for the rest of that day. Through all those months Montalto himself gained strength daily and recovered more and more of the comparative youthfulness which remains to a man not forty; and Maria changed little, if at all, though Leone thought the white patch near her left temple was growing larger. ”

“ She made a last appeal.
‘You have forgiven me so much, Diego. You have trusted me so much! I only ask you to trust me now—there is nothing to forgive!’
‘You may as well say at once that you have sent a cheque to that scoundrel,’ said Montalto angrily. ‘You have thrown it away. He still has the photographs, and as soon as he wants more money he will threaten us again. I warned you not to do that!’
Maria hoped desperately that if she remained silent he would continue in this belief. But the obstinacy of an over-conscientious person who has a ‘duty’ to perform is appalling. ”

“ Maria turned to him.
‘I would rather not tell you,’ she said gently. ‘It is quite useless for you to go to the police, for the letters will not be published.’
She spoke in a tone of perfect certainty that surprised him.
‘You seem very sure,’ he said.
‘I am quite sure.’
‘And you object to telling me why you are. Very strange!’
‘I don’t “object,” Diego. I only say I would rather not. I ask you not to question me.’
‘My dear,’ answered Montalto, ‘only reflect upon what you are saying. In the first place, you are a woman, and you may be mistaken.’
‘I am not. ”

“ It was well that Montalto had taken her back and that the dream had ended in that sharp agony; if there had been no such waking it would have turned into a reality she shuddered to think of.
She rose and went to her writing-table and opened a deep drawer. It was there that she kept the small locked desk she had used in Via San Martino, the one in which she had put away Castiglione’s letters, meaning to burn them. With them there was also that letter of her husband’s in which he had first spoken of reconciliation, and she had never opened the writing-case since she had placed it there. ”

“ Montalto had a good many more or less distant relations in Rome, but it was not only out of consideration for them that Maria went into mourning on that very day and dressed Leone in black and white; if there was one being in the world whose sorrow she was bound to respect outwardly as well as in every other way, that man was her husband. ”

“ Rapidly advancing, he seized the bridle of his horse, and thus addressed him:—“Barozzo! [Pg 93] the measure of thy crimes is full, and retribution is at hand! Colonna the painter is no more, but the son of Montalto has escaped thy dagger, and demands atonement for his father’s blood. Dismount, assassin! and defend thy worthless life!”
The deep and startling grandeur of Colonna’s voice, and the implacable hostility which flashed from his fierce eyeballs, shook the firm sinews of the guilty governor, and again his swarthy lineaments were blanched with terror. ”

“ Two days later Montalto informed Maria after luncheon that he had an appointment with the Chief of Police at three o’clock, and had decided to lay the whole matter before him and to leave it altogether in his hands. It had taken Montalto almost a week to reach this final decision, and Maria had devoutly hoped that he would never act at all. She thought it would be like him to put off doing anything till he convinced himself that the blackmailer’s letter had been an idle threat, never to be put into execution ”

“ But all these things could not make the young wife forget Baldassare del Castiglione, who was only a more or less penniless officer in the Piedmont Lancers. The worst of it was that Montalto liked him, instinctively [42] because his name was also so extremely historical, and fatally because husbands are the last to discover their wives’ preferences. Montalto had thrown Maria and Castiglione together.
She had gone to confession again and again, for she had been brought up to be very devout. Her confessor told her each time that she must avoid the man she loved and pray to forget him. ”

“ Yet this thought was evil, too, now that she had said those words to Castiglione in the [244] lift, and she must kill the memory of her lover in her heart if she had the least respect left for herself, or for her husband’s honour, or for God’s right.
Even now it would be better to throw herself upon Montalto’s mercy and confess the truth before the thief wrote to him. She would rather tell it all, against herself, than let him learn it suddenly, brutally, from the vile letter in which the blackmailer would make his demand. It would be easier for Montalto too. ”

“ I am very deeply conscious of your generosity in all ways, and this house is yours, not mine.’
‘It is ours,’ said Montalto, ‘except for Teresa Crescenzi. I do not wish you to think of it in any other way. And that brings me to the last point. May I inquire whether you have found yourself in any—how shall I say?—in any financial straits in which my fortune can be of service to you?’
You may judge a man of the world’s wisdom by the sort of wife he chooses, but the test of a gentleman is the way he treats his wife. ”

“ It is true that all industrious persons are not truthful, but since Aristotle admits that even a woman or a slave may possibly be good, some good-natured people will perhaps allow that a novelist may sometimes write the truth.
Maria had passed a wretched night. After the two guests had gone Montalto had come to her room and had poured out all his remorse for his mad conduct, entreating her over and over again to forgive him, not breaking down in tears, but overwhelming her with every assurance and proof of his almost insane love. ”

“ It was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation and self-control to the right cause. 'Veramente costui è un gran frate!' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. ”

“ Maria did not remember that he had ever cried, either, even when he was in arms. Altogether, at the age of eight, Leone di Montalto was a personage with whom it was necessary to reckon.
Maria knew that she loved him almost to the verge of weakness, but she would not have been the woman she was if she had been carried beyond that limit. He was all she had left in life, and so far as lay in her she meant that he should be a Christian gentleman. Nature seemed to have made him without fear; and Maria [26] would have him reach a man’s estate without reproach. ”

“ The little silk tag of the inner lid had been jammed inside by a hand unfamiliar with it. The details flashed upon her quickly, and in half a minute she understood that she had forgotten nothing. She had left the letters in the desk, and they were no longer there. Some one had stolen them all, and her husband’s letter with them.
She grew slowly cold with fear as she closed the empty desk and put it into the drawer again; and once more that hideous thought rose up and tormented her. Montalto had come back to be revenged upon her for his wrongs, slowly and surely ”

“ Maria, ‘and you wish me to form a judgment of him.’
‘I want your opinion,’ answered Montalto, who was at odds with his over-sensitive conscience. ‘I should be very unjust to Schmidt if I were to say that he may not be quite honest. It would be very wrong to assume such a thing of any one, would it not?’
‘If you had no grounds for suspicion, yes. But even an instinctive distrust of a man of business is enough reason for not giving him the entire control of a large estate.’
‘Do you really think so, my dear? ”