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Sunrise, a novel by William Black |
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Chapter 55. Congratulations |
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_ CHAPTER LV. CONGRATULATIONS The Secretary Granaglia, the business of the Council being over, carried the news to Von Zoesch. It was almost dark when he made his way up the steep little terraces in the garden of the villa at Posilipo. He found the tall general seated at the entrance to the grotto-like retreat, smoking a cigar in the dusk. "You are late, Granaglia," he said. "I had some difficulty in coming here," said the little man with the sallow face and the tired eyes. "The police are busy, or pretending to be. The Commendatore tells me that Zaccatelli has been stirring them up." "Zaccatelli!" said Von Zoesch, with a laugh. "It will soon be time now for Zaccatelli to come down from his perch. Well, now, what is the result?" Granaglia briefly recounted what had occurred: the other manifested no surprise. "So this is the end of the Lind episode," he said, thoughtfully. "It is a pity that so able a man should be thrown away. He has worked well; I know of no one who will fill his place; but that must be seen to at once, Granaglia. How long have they given him?" "A month, your Excellency. He wishes to go back to England to put his affairs in order. He has a firm nerve." "He was a good-looking man when he was young," said Von Zoesch, apparently to himself. Then he added: "This Beratinsky, to whom the Zaccatelli affair has been transferred--what do you think of him? There must be no bungling, Granaglia. What do you think of him--is he to be trusted?" "Your Excellency, if I were to give you my own impression, I should say not in the least. He accepts this service--why? Because he is otherwise lost for certain, and here is a chance: it is perhaps better than nothing. But he does not go forward with any conviction of duty: what is he thinking but of his chance of running away?" "And perhaps running away beforehand, for example?" "Oh no, your Excellency; at least, that has been provided for. Caprone and the brother of Caprone will wait upon him until the thing is over; and what is more, he will receive a hint that these two humble attendants of his are keeping an eye on him." "Caprone dare not go to Rome." "He is ready to go anywhere. They might as well try to lay hands on a ghost." Von Zoesch rose, and stretched his huge frame, and yawned. "So this is the end of the episode Lind," he said, idly. "It is a pity. But if a man plays a risky game and loses, he must pay. Perhaps the warning will be wholesome, Granaglia. Our friends must understand that our laws are not laid down for nothing, and that we are not afraid to punish offenders, even if these be among ourselves. I suppose there is nothing further to be done to-night?" "I would ask your Excellency to remain here for a little time yet," said the Secretary. "Are they coming so near? We must get Calabressa to procure some of them a dozen or two on board the schooner. However--" He sat down again, and lit another cigar. "We must pay Calabressa a compliment, Granaglia; it was well done--very clever; it has all turned out just as he imagined; it is not the first time he has done us good service, with all his volubility. Oh yes; the rascal knows when to hold his tongue. At this moment, for example, he refuses to open his lips. "Pardon, your Excellency; but I do not understand you." The general laughed a little, and continued talking--it was one way of passing the time. "It is a good joke enough. The wily old Calabressa saw pretty clearly what the decision of the Council would be, and so he comes to me and entreats me to be the bearer of the news to Madame Lind and her daughter. Oh yes; it is good news, this deliverance of the Englishman; Madame Lind is an old friend of mine; she and her daughter will be grateful. But you perceive, Granaglia, that what the cunning old dog was determined to avoid was the reporting to Madame Lind that her husband had been sentenced. That was no part of the original programme. And now Calabressa holds his mouth shut; he keeps out of the way; it is left for me to go and inform the mother and daughter." His voice became more serious. "The devil take it, it is no pleasant task at all! One is never sure how the brain of a woman will work; you start the engine, but it may plunge back the wrong way and strike you. Calabressa is afraid. The fox is hiding in some hole until it is all over." "Cannot I be of some service, your Excellency?" the Secretary said. "No, no; but I thank you, friend Granaglia. It is a delicate matter; it must be approached with circumspection; and I as an old acquaintance of Madame Lind, ought not to shirk the duty." Apparently, it was not Calabressa only who had some dread of the difficulties of news-bearer. "It is impossible for your Excellency to go near the hotel at present," said the Secretary, promptly. But his chief refused to accept this offered means of escape. "That is true, but it is not a difficulty. To-night, friend Granaglia, you will send a message to the hotel, bidding them be at the Villa Odelschalchi to-morrow morning at eleven--you understand?" "Certainly, your Excellency." "Then I will meet them, and take the risk. Everything must be settled off at once: we have wasted too much time over this affair, Granaglia. When does the Genoa Council meet?" "On the Seventh." "To-morrow you must issue the summonses. Come, Granaglia, let us be stirring; it is cold. Where does Brother Conventz sleep to-night?" "On board the schooner, your Excellency." "I also. To-morrow, at eleven, you will be at Portici; to-night you will send the message to the ladies at the hotel; and also, if you can, find out where that rogue Calabressa is hiding." That was the last of their talking. There was some locking up inside; then they passed down through the dark garden and out into the road. There was no one visible. They walked on in silence. Punctually at eleven the next morning Natalie and her mother appeared at the iron gates of the Villa Odelschalchi and rang the bell. The porter appeared, admitted them, and then turned to the great white staircase, which Granaglia was at that moment seen to be descending. "Will the ladies have the goodness to step into the garden?" said the Secretary, with grave courtesy. "General von Zoesch will be with them directly." He accompanied them as far as the top of the terrace, and then bowed and withdrew. If Natalie Lind was agitated now, it was not with fear. There was a fresh animation of color in her cheek; her eyes were brilliant and excited; she spoke in low, eager whispers. "Oh, I know what he is coming to tell us, mother--you need not be afraid: I shall see it in his face before he comes near--I think I shall be able to hear it in the sound of his steps. Have courage, mother! why do you tremble so? Remember what Calabressa said. They are so powerful they can do everything; and you and the General von Zoesch old friends, too. Look at this, mother: do you see what I have brought with me?" She opened her purse--her fingers were certainly a little nervous--and showed her mother a folded-up telegraph form. "I am going to telegraph to him, mother: surely it is from me he should hear the news first. And then he might come here, mother, to go back with us: you will rest a few days after so much anxiety." "I hope, my darling, it will all turn out well," said the mother, turning quickly as she heard footsteps. The next second Von Zoesch appeared, his face red with embarrassment; but still Natalie with her first swift glance saw that his eyes were smiling and friendly, and her heart leaped up with a bound. "My dear young lady," said he, taking her hand, "forgive me for making such a peremptory appointment--" "But you bring good news'?" she said, breathlessly. "Oh, sir, I can see that you have succeeded--yes, yes--the danger is removed--you have saved him!" "My dear young lady," said he smiling, but still greatly embarrassed, "it is my good fortune to be able to congratulate you. Ah, I thought that would bring some brightness to your eyes--" She raised his hand, and kissed it twice passionately. "Mother," she said, in a wild, joyful way, "will you not thank him for me? I do not know what I am saying--and then--" The general had turned to her mother. Natalie quickly took out the telegraph-form, unfolded it, knelt down and put it on the garden-seat, and with trembling fingers wrote her message: "_You are saved! Come to us at once; my mother and I wait here for you;_" that was the substance of it. Then she rose, and for a second or two stood irresolute, silent, and shamefaced. Happily no one had noticed her. These two had gone forward, and were talking together in a low voice. She did not join them; she could not have spoken then, her heart was throbbing so violently with its newly-found joy. "Stefan," said the mother--and there was a pleasant light in her sad eyes too--"I shall never forget the gratitude we owe you. I have nothing else to regard now but my child's happiness. You have saved her life to her." "Yes, yes," he said, in stammering haste, "I am glad the child is happy. It would be a pity, at her time of life, and such a beautiful, brave young lady--yes, it would be a pity if she were to suffer: I am very glad. But there is another side to the question, Natalie; it refers to you. I have not such good news for you--that is, it depends on how you take it; but it is not good news--it will trouble you--only, it was inevitable--" "What do you mean?" she said, calmly. "Your husband," he said, regarding her somewhat anxiously. "Yes," she said, without betraying any emotion. "Well, you understand, we had not the power to release your English friend unless there had been injustice--or worse--in his being appointed. There was. More than that, it was very nearly a repetition of the old story. Your husband was again implicated." She merely looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "And the Council," he said, more embarrassed than ever, "had to try him for his complicity. He was tried and--condemned." "To what?" she said, quite calmly. "You must know, Natalie. He loses his life!" She turned very pale. "It was not so before," she managed to say, though her breath came and went quickly. "It was; but then he was pardoned. This time there is no hope." She stood silent for a second or two; then she said, regarding him with a sad look, "You think me heartless, Stefan. You think I ought to be overwhelmed with grief. But--but I have been kept from my child for seventeen years. I have lived with the threat of the betrayal of my father hanging over me. The affection of a wife cannot endure everything. Still, I am--sorry--" Her eyes were cast down, and they slowly filled with tears. Von Zoesch breathed more freely. He was eagerly explaining to her how this result had become inevitable--how he himself had had no participation in it, and so forth--when Natalie Lind stepped quickly up to them, looking from the one to the other. She saw something was wrong. "Mother, what is it?" she said, in vague fear. She turned to Von Zoesch. "Oh, sir, if there is something you have not told me--if there is trouble--why was it not to me that you spoke?" She took hold of her mother's hand. "Mother, what is it?" "My dear young lady," said Von Zoesch, interposing, "you know that life is made up of both bitter and sweet--" "I wish to know, signore," she said, proudly, "what it is you have told my mother. If there is trouble, it is for her daughter to share it." "Well, then, dear young lady, I will tell you," he said, "though it will grieve you also. I must explain to you. You cannot suppose that the happy news I deliver to you was the result of the will of any one man, or number of men. No. It was the result of the application of law and justice. Your--sweetheart, shall I call him?--was intrusted with a grave duty, which would most probably have cost him his life. In the ordinary way, no one could have released him from it, however much certain friends of yours here might have been interested in you, and grieved to see you unhappy. But there was this possibility--it was even a probability--that he had been selected for this service unfairly. Then, no doubt, if that could be proved, he ought to be released." "Yes, yes," she said, impatiently. "That was proved. Unfortunately, I have to tell you that among those convicted of this conspiracy was your father. Well, the laws of our association are strict--they are even terrible where a delinquent is in a position of high responsibility. My dear young lady, I must tell you the truth: your father has been adjudged guilty--and--and the punishment is--death!" She uttered a quick, short cry of alarm, and turned with frightened eyes to her mother. "Mother, is it true? is it true?" The mother did not answer; she had clasped her trembling hands. Then the girl turned; there was a proud passion in her voice. "Oh, sir, what tiger is there among you that is so athirst for blood? You save one man's life--after intercession and prayer you save one man's life--only to seize on that of another. And it is to me--it is to me, his daughter--that you come with congratulations! I am only a child; I am to be pleased: you speak of a sweetheart; but you do not tell me that you are about to murder my father! You give me my lover; in exchange you take my father's life. Is there a woman in all the world so despicable as to accept her happiness at such a cost?" Involuntarily she crushed up the telegram she held in her hand and threw it away from her. "It is not I, at all events," she exclaimed. "Oh, signore, you should not have mocked me with your congratulations. That is not the happiness you should offer to a daughter. But you have not killed him yet--there is time; let things be as they were; that is what my sweetheart, as you call him, will say; he and I are not afraid to suffer. Surely, rather that, than that he should marry a girl so heartless and cowardly as to purchase her happiness at the cost of her father's life?" "My dear young lady," he said, with a great pity and concern in his face, "I can assure you what you think of is impossible. What is done cannot be undone." Her proud indignation now gave way to terror. "Oh no, signore, you cannot mean that! I cannot believe it! You have saved one man--oh, signore, for the love of Heaven, this other also! Have pity! How can I live, if I know that I have killed my father?" He took both her hands in his, and strove to soothe down her wild terror and dismay. He declared to her she had nothing to do with it, no more than himself; that her father had been tried by his colleagues; that if he had not been, a fearful act of treachery would have been committed. She listened, or appeared to listen; but her lips were pale; her eyes had a strange look in them; she was breathless. "Calabressa said they were all-powerful," she interrupted suddenly. "But are they all-powerful to slay only? Oh no, I cannot believe it! I will go to them; it cannot be too late; I will say to them that I would rather have died than appealed to them if I had known that this was to be the terrible result. And Calabressa--why did he not warn me? Or is he one of the blood-thirsty ones also--one of the tigers that crouch in the dark? Oh, signore, if they are all-powerful, they are all-powerful to pardon. May I not go to themselves?" "It would be useless, my dear signorina," said Von Zoesch, with deep compassion in his voice. "I am sorry to grieve you, but justice has been done, and the decision is past recall. And do not blame poor old Calabressa--" At this moment the bell of the outer gate rang, echoing through the empty house, and he started somewhat. "Come, child," said her mother. "We have taken up too much of your time, Stefan. I wish there had been no drawback to your good news." "At the present moment," he said, glancing somewhat anxiously toward the building, "I cannot ask you to stay, Natalie; but on some other occasion, and as soon as you please, I will give you any information you may wish. Remember, you have good friends here." Natalie suffered herself to be led away. She seemed too horror-stricken to be able to speak. Von Zoesch accompanied them only to the terrace, and there bade them good-bye. Granaglia was waiting to show them to the gate. A few moments afterward they were in their carriage, returning to Naples. They sat silent for some time, the mother regarding her daughter anxiously. "Natalushka, what are you thinking of?" The girl started: her eyes were filled with a haunting fear, as if she had just seen some terrible thing. And yet she spoke slowly and sadly and wistfully. "I was thinking, mother, that perhaps it was not so hard to be condemned to die; for then there would come an end to one's suffering. And I was wondering whether there had been many women in the world who had to accuse themselves of taking a part in bringing about their own father's death. Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" A second afterward she added, with more than the bitterness of tears in her trembling voice, "And--and I was thinking of General von Zoesch's congratulations, mother." _ |
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