Chapter XIX: “mariana”

The real tragedy of separation is not for the banished lover; it is for the desolate home-keeper, who knows no distractions of change and movement to solace her aching heart. He, at least, has his freedom, his new interests; she, none but the old, grown now so flat and unprofitable since the glorifying light was once flashed upon them and withdrawn. How darker than darkness looks a room when the lamp is blown out; how stale and charmless seems life the morning after the play; how remote from the witching darling of last night’s masque appears this love-sick Chloe, yawning biliously over her untouched breakfast plate! Perhaps Strephon this morning also looks a little “off colour” and feels a little sick; but he has the imperative duties of office to call him to a sane resumption of life’s prose, and no doubt by lunch time he has earned himself a vigorous appetite, no less hearty for the sentiment which has intervened between his chop of yesterday and his curried prawns of to-day.

But, for poor stay-at-home Chloe, some zest has gone for ever from the old placid satisfactions; she cannot recover at their past valuation the humdrum routine of things; she has seen the commonplace transformed, and henceforth life to her, to be life, must reveal itself on a higher plane. So she still toys with her food at luncheon, and again at dinner, and sighs over the insufferable dreariness and monotony of that social existence which once made her full content.

“What made the assembly shine?” O, what, indeed, poor Isabel, since your days have fallen into so sad a melancholy, and the light has fled from your haunted eyes? “Because Lorenzo came not?” Alas he did not come, he did not speak; and to what was life reduced, lacking his voice and presence. So, thinking the same thought of unaccountable neglect, these divided lovers mourned apart. Sometimes in her heart she would upbraid him, calling him false and cruel; but more often she accused herself, saying she had been his ruin, his evil genius, and again bemoaning her own fatal weakness in not flying with him when he had bidden her. Yet, granted they were well parted, he might have salved her anguish with something kinder than this killing silence. Had he so soon forgotten her--forgotten how she had bidden him call to her, when all hope was gone, and she would fly to him? No, she could not, she would not believe it. It was only that he did not realise how cruelly souls condemned to pining inaction might suffer. Out in the free air it was so hard to enter into the feelings of the dull prisoner hidden from one’s ken. She made every loving excuse for him; and still, poor thing, she hungered for a sign, and, hungering, trembled at the thought of her own wickedness.

For was she not a plighted bride--enslaved by token of the hateful golden fetter clasping her finger? She wore it in public, to the duke her father’s vacuous content; but at night she would fling it from her, and kneel to her basil, and kiss its perfumed leaves, and moan out her passionate penitence for even that show of disloyalty. She had brought this, her treasure of treasures, with her, and it was her one comfort and reassurance in all the grievous time.

One day it came to her, did he know of the formal betrothal? Perhaps he had looked to her love’s high courage to resist to the last, and, learning the mortal truth, how at the first onset she had failed him, had renounced so frail an ally. O, in that case, how could she let him know that her heart had never once wavered in its fidelity to him--let him know that, whatever bitter fate forced their steps apart, she was his, in everything but seeming, to all eternity?

Poor child; she was always more loving than wilful--no forceful heroine to command her own destiny. She waited for the call, only bewildered as to what to do to evoke it. She could obey, but she could not initiate. Perhaps, at first, she had hoped, like that other, that, the ceremony once achieved, she would be allowed to return to Colorno. If so, it did not take long to disillusion her. At the first hint of such a wish the duke, angrily suspicious, half revealed himself:

“Understand, your salad days are over, and for ever. Henceforth you await here the completion of the contract which is to make you woman out of child. All romantic follies of the past must be forgotten. You renounced them, in all faith and honour, when you accepted his Highness’s token from my hands.”

She shrank back, as if detected in her guilt; and Don Philip continued:

“I look to you not to force me into some very drastic measures to cut this trouble at its root. Think well of what I say, for much concerning another welfare than yours depends on it.”

He had found the way to silence her. She could not misread the hint, or blind herself to the understanding which lay behind it. _His_ life lay at the mercy of her conduct. If she would preserve it, she must assume a placid resignation, seem to repudiate the very suggestion of any _arrière pensée_ in her proposal.

The shock was stunning, but, having surmounted it, she bent herself with piteous eagerness to play the deceiver’s part. Her fear went on tiptoe; she smiled and sang in the duke’s presence, so that it was pathetic to see her--a thing to turn one’s eyes from. He may have approved the effort; yet in truth she could not so suffer without betraying a sign. To clinch the matter, he decided to play, in collusion with another, his reserve card.

One day, the Infanta being present, his Highness began, on some pre-arranged provocation, to banter La Coque upon his former jealousy of a rival musician.

“Admit he sang divinely,” he said.

“In truth, monseigneur, I saw but little divinity in the man.”

“O, you would not, chirruping with your nose to the ground!”

“That’s as it may be. I fear no test, before an impartial judge.”

“What; you would back yourself in a competition of voices?”

“Aye, and of improvisation--this day, this moment, if you will. Let M. Tiretta be summoned, and give us both a fair hearing.”

“Coquin, you dare the challenge, knowing he is gone.”

“On my faith, no, sir. I believed him at Colorno. Whither is he vanished?”

“To the devil--to Vienna--to anywhere, for what I care, so he remains to shock our sense of decorum no longer. Truth is the rascal claimed too many of the prerogatives of the troubadour--free sport among the petticoats for one. The scandal grew notorious. There was a wench, for instance--but ware, bully-boy! I tread on dangerous ground.”

“_My_ ground, sir?”

“How he threats us with his brow! Spare us, good Charlot--I but quote the common report. Yet admit the fellow had an endearing way with him.”

“Curse him!”

La Coque was half caught in the snare of his own setting. He stood glowering sulkily, while Don Philip, with a little stealthy sidelong glance at his daughter, turned with a snigger to some other of his suite.

A flush of colour to her cheek; a just perceptible lift of the lip--the duke was scarce intelligent enough to read the signs.

That they could think her capable of being trapped by such a shallow artifice! Her heart swelled in her breast over the base wrong to him, the despicable meanness to herself. O, how fine and proud he appeared by contrast with these ignoble minds, how remote from them in his living intensity, his spiritual dignity! She would not even condescend to defend him in thought against a slander so gross and obvious. Its effect was to confirm her tenfold in her faith.

“She is pricked,” thought the duke. “We may leave the poison to work.”

But the poison was not as he surmised: it was shame, not for the slandered but the slanderer, that burnt in her veins. Her father! That he could have debased himself to such methods! All in a moment he seemed revealed to her for what he was, a prince with a clown’s heart, a whited sepulchre, behind the mask of elegance a soul like a shrivelled kernel, without life or savour. She turned from him, in a very sickness of repulsion.

But that night, as Fanchette was preparing her for bed, she rose suddenly from her chair, and, turning upon the maid, clasped her convulsively by the arms.

“Tell me of him, or I shall die,” she said.

The girl for the moment was completely taken aback. She did not know what to answer, and could only stare and gasp. The feverish clutch closed more urgently upon her.

“I have no friend but you in all the world, Fanchette. Have I not been kind to you? O, be kind to me and tell me! You know very well--you have always known, I think. Forgive me if I pretended not to understand you. I tried so long to fight against it; and I could not--and my heart is breaking.”

Startled, unnerved as she was, Fanchette could not but be touched by that piteous appeal.

“Hush!” she said. “What do you want to know? There, sit upon this couch, and speak low, while I kneel to you. So. Now, tell me, are you always thinking of him?”

“Always, always, Fanchette--all the weary day and night. Why does he not send me one least little message?”

“It is said he is gone to Vienna.”

“O, cruel!”

“Would you kill him with your rashness? Do you not know he is suspected?”

“Fanchette!--my God! Tell him to keep away. You must--you can find means.”

“What is the good, when by your every look and act you betray him.”

“I will not--O, I will not! But to hear him so slandered and maligned--it is hard to suffer and to smile.”

“Do they slander him--are you sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“O, nothing!” She gave a little affected laugh. She was beginning to consider her part. “Only it does not do with us to idealise our fancies too much.”

She failed, for all her effort, to meet the inquisition of the true grief-stricken eyes.

“Fanchette!”

“O, we know how gossip is to be discounted. For myself, at least, I never took him seriously.”

“In what?”

“It is only natural to propitiate the maid if you would come at the mistress.”

“Did he make love to _you_?”

“O, that is too definite a term! He said enough to put me on my guard against him--that is all.”

“You need not have been so scrupulous. He is ever courteous and considerate--attentions that woman in her vanity is always too ready to accept as single to herself.”

“O, I took his for what they were worth! I was under no delusions as to their value.” She tossed her head. There was a spot of anger on her cheek; some venom in her tone. “I am sure I had no intention,” she said loftily, “to disabuse your mind about him.”

“No one could do that but himself,” answered Isabella proudly. “Though all the world slandered him, I should not listen or believe.” She drooped her sad head, knotting and unknotting her fingers. “I hoped I had a friend,” she said; “but I think I am quite alone.”

Fanchette sulked a little, though with a certain bewildered contempt in her mind. How was one to circumvent this loyal fool, so obdurate in her love’s faith? If all evidence was so to be discredited by her, what was the use of their conspiring to produce it? And as she thought--even with some grudging sympathy with a pertinacity which was, after all, characteristically feminine--two soft arms came about her neck, and two soft entreating eyes looked into hers.

“Fanchette; in pity tell me, _what_ am I to do.”

The girl sniffed, and caught her breath. If she had but little heart, the emotionalism in her was always a responsive quantity. She answered, almost hysterically:

“O! what is the good of asking me? He is gone, I tell you--some say summoned by the archduke to answer for his conduct. Perhaps he is dead by now.”

She saw the roses quit the cheek, and clutched at the slender form as it swayed backwards. She was full of passionate remorse and alarm in a moment.

“Mistress--dearest, it was a lie. Look up--listen to me--I am a wicked heartless wretch! He is not dead--I know it--I was told by one who knows it. He has been to Vienna, and left again: it is thought he has gone to the wars.”

She wept, and upbraided herself, and fondled the scarce animate form, calling upon it to speak, to forgive her, not to die and curse her to eternal despair. And presently her urgency prevailed, and a tinge of colour came back to the white face, and the ghost of a voice reassured her:

“Without one word to me?”

She took her in her arms, and rocked her, soothing and protesting in one:

“They are all alike for that. Loin des yeux, loin du coeur, is it not. There, don’t give way so. It is wiser anyhow that he should disappear for the time being; and like enough he sees it, and sees clearer than you. If he’s all your fancy paints him, he’ll come back again when the dust he’s kicked up has settled; and in the meantime--” she ventured to coax, trusting to the impression she was making--“I’d try to forget him, dear mistress, an I were you--if for no better reason than to prepare yourself against emergencies. He’s not strong enough to fight against a throne, and if he hasn’t realised that by this time, a little reflection will be sure to convince him. And then it isn’t as if you were asked to make your choice between honey and gall. His Highness by all accounts is a very proper man, tender but self-willed, as we women like, and with all the advantage of youth on his side----”

She submitted, falling silent, to the quick passionate rebuff which her words evoked. Isabella, putting her aside, rose to her feet and stood breathing spasmodically, her hand crushed to her bosom.

“There,” she said, panting a little: “you have said enough. I have been weak and foolish; and I am ashamed. Forget everything I said, Fanchette, and let me forget it. I am very tired, and I wish to sleep.”

With a face of formal duty, the maid rose from her knees, and, very stiff and punctilious, completed her young mistress’s night toilette. Not another word did she speak; until presently the parting benediction, which she uttered in a voice so cold that it might have been mistaken for an anathema.

And Isabella? Once alone, she crept and found her basil-pot, and sighed her love’s orisons among its muffling leaves, where still the envious flowers delayed to show, and eased her sore heart in silent tears.

Gone to the wars? And without one word or sign to her? Perhaps to be slain, and so to leave her for evermore bereaved and desolate. O, was it true--was it? Did he want to die, perhaps, because his hope was already killed? She had killed it; it was her silence that had driven him to despair. The anguish of that thought was exquisite. He had trusted to her, and she had failed him. O, for some poison in these gentle leaves, to breathe and sleep and die upon her love! She never once doubted his fidelity--not once. All those cruel calumnies had left her unshaken. Her pure heart was incapable of such treachery. They might as well forbear to hurt a faith that was immortal.

In the midst of her agony a thought stole upon her like balm. A report!--it was nothing more than that. Was it possible that he himself had given it currency, in order to throw dust in their eyes--that, under cover of it, he had returned to Parma, and was somewhere in hiding, waiting till he could communicate with her? There was life, passionate, exulting, in that reaction to hope. How could she ever have believed he would abandon her so, after what had passed between them--her lord, her noble heart? She was a poor trustless thing, unworthy of his choice.

Steadfastly she strove to keep that dear belief before her eyes; and, little as it was, it was enough to steel her to endure the long long days of waiting. For still they passed and passed without a sign, drawing her hour by hour nearer to the fate she so unspeakably dreaded. She did not ask herself by what miracle she was to escape her doom. She felt only that to see him again, to rest upon his heart, were to solve all difficulties.

And so the year sped on. To Fanchette she betrayed no more of herself; only her basil was her only friend; and she would speak softly to it, and with pretty wooings ask it to blossom soon--very soon now, lest its tardiness should prove their undoing. It was odd and pitiful how she had come to regard this plant as the sure symbol of their destiny.

About the court, those who knew, and watched her privately, believed her to be truly reconciled. She was very quiet and gracious with all; they took her sweet seriousness for first flower of the solemn election to which she was called, as one fits oneself with gravity for the sacrament. And yet she was guileful--a most wilful and passionate rebel under her seeming repose, since Love had first taught her his outlawry. Only she had learned discretion of necessity; she could play a part with her spies, and lead them on to false conclusions. Because for her love’s dear using alone she preserved the perfect treasure of her truth and loyalty. What did anything else matter?

Once or twice during this time she received a letter from her royal betrothed--documents of the heart inevitably a little pompous, but kind and manly. There was no least allusion in them, of course, to a dismissed episode, no condescending to a reference to so inconsiderable a spark in the orbit of the imperial system as a certain M. Tiretta. Had there been, Isabella might have cast them aside, the formal pretence of reading once achieved, with less impatience than she did. And yet, in honest truth, they were more than she deserved.

And still the year, like a celestial lamplighter, ran down its golden ladder from the topmost heavens; and as the sun dropped daily from its high estate, and the earth grew slowly chill, so into the girl’s heart stole ever more and more the killing frost of hope deferred. All her first despair crept back, and now with renewed terror that it must indeed be as Fanchette had hinted, and that he was gone to fight--perhaps was even now lying stark and dead upon some battlefield, or weeks-long buried under the bloody sods. For all her frantic longings and strained listening, no reference to him in her father’s court had ever again, since that shameful day, reached her ears; and there were already wedding rumours in the air.

Then, in the loneliness of her room, she fell upon her knees and called miserably upon death, if he had taken her love, to take her too--to save her from the unspeakable anguish of the fate with which she was now nearly threatened.

And death responded, after his manner with those who impiously take his name. He saved her, as she prayed him to, but, inasmuch as her plea to him was conditional on a life, with a life he answered.

Early in December came the news that the Duchess Louise-Elizabeth had been seized with the smallpox at Versailles; and within a few days she was dead.

Isabella had her desire: the wedding was indefinitely postponed.