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Chapter Thirty Five
The Captain is Outspoken
“But tell me,” cried Mary, utterly amazed at the unhappy man’s startling allegations, “do you actually declare that Dubard and Mr Macbean have conspired in order to throw the opprobrium upon you?”
“I do,” he answered in a low, hard tone. “I am convinced of it. Macbean is an Englishman living in London – secretary to an English deputy named Morgan-Mason.”
“He is a friend of mine,” she remarked quietly. “I know him quite well.”
“Then do not trust him,” Solaro urged. “He is the – ” But he hesitated, as though fearing to make any direct charge against one who was her friend.
“The what?” she inquired eagerly.
For a few moments he remained silent.
“He is the man who, with Dubard, was the cause of my downfall,” he responded, although from his hesitating tone she felt assured that those words were not what he had first intended to utter.
“And Dubard?” she asked, her face now very grave.
“What use is it to discuss either of them?” he said bitterly. “I am their victim – that is all.”
“But with what motive?” she asked, bewildered at this revelation. “What connection can Mr Macbean possibly have with these false scandalous charges against you?”
“Ah! the motive is more than I can tell,” he declared. “I can only surmise it.”
“But there surely must be some motive!” she remarked, at the same time recollecting what she had learnt, that the information furnished by Dubard formed the basis of the charges intended to be levelled by the Socialists against her father.
“I have never had an opportunity of ascertaining it,” he said. “I would, however, desire to warn you most strongly against that man Macbean.”
Mary remained silent. What he had said puzzled and mystified her. His words were not prompted by motives of jealousy. That was impossible, for he was unaware of Macbean’s presence in Rome. As far as she knew, the two men had never been acquainted – the one an officer in garrison in the Alps, and the other living in far-off London. She endeavoured to induce him to speak more plainly, but it was evident that her acknowledgment that Macbean was her friend prevented him from opening his mind concerning him.
All her sympathies being with the imprisoned man, she felt a distinct suspicion arising within her concerning the young Englishman. – She wondered whether after all he had really schemed to obtain an appointment in the Ministry; if his present position was only in furtherance of some sinister object?
She spoke of Dubard, but the prisoner was equally silent concerning him.
“What I can tell you about either of them amounts to nothing without proof, and without my liberty I cannot obtain that. They know it!” he said angrily. “They know that while I am here, in prison, my lips are sealed!”
“But it is infamous!” exclaimed the red-faced old general. “If you were the victim of a plot laid by these two fellows, whoever they are, the matter ought to be sifted to the bottom. I don’t believe you are guilty, Solaro! I told His Excellency the Minister so!”
“Ah, my dear general, you have been my best friend,” declared the man now clothed in sacking in lieu of a uniform. “But your efforts must all be unavailing. They are sending me to the loneliness of Gorgona, that place where many a better man than myself has been driven insane by solitude. They know that on Gorgona I shall not live very long – indeed, they will take very good care of that.”
“They – who are they?” inquired Mary quickly.
“My enemies.”
“Mr Macbean and Dubard, you mean?”
“No, others – others I need not name,” he responded vaguely, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.
“But if you are the victim of a plot it must have been a most elaborate one, for the mass of evidence against you seems overwhelming. What object could the conspirators have had in view? Were they friends of yours?”
“Yes – once. Their object was probably not of their own – but that of others,” he added.
His words left the impression upon her that his conviction was part of the elaborate scheme of Angelo Borselli. And yet was not that very man now urging her to secure his release!
The affair was increased in mystery a thousandfold.
“Then if Mr Macbean was only slightly known to you why should he have plotted to secure your ruin and imprisonment?” she queried in eagerness.
“As I have already said, they were both in peril as long as I was at liberty. It was to their own interests – indeed for their own safety – that I should be sent here.”
“What do they fear?”
“They fear what I could reveal – the facts that I could prove if I were not held here a prisoner,” he said bitterly.
“And would those facts be strange ones?”
“They would be startling – they would create a sensation throughout Italy. They would throw a new light on certain affairs connected with the Ministry of War that would come as a thunderclap upon the people.”
“You defied the Minister, remember,” his general remarked gravely.
“I know. I lost my head. I broke my sword and threw the pieces at his feet in defiance. I was foolish – ah! very foolish. Only I was angry at his refusal to order a revision of my trial.”
“Yes,” the general admitted. “You have prejudiced yourself in His Excellency’s eyes, I fear. Your indignation was but natural, but it was ill-advised at that moment. The Minister Morini is not the man to brook defiance in that manner.”
“But I do defy him still!” cried the desperate man, turning to the tragic figure in black. “Although he is your father, signorina, I repeat that he has done me an injustice – and that injustice is because he, like the others, fears to give me my liberty!”
“But if you were released – if I could manage to obtain for you a pardon – would you make the revelations of which you have spoken?”
For some minutes he was silent, thinking deeply, apparently reflecting upon the consequences of speaking the truth. Then he answered —
“No. I think not.”
“Why not?”
“Because – well, because there are one or two facts of which I have no absolute proof.”
“But you are certain of Dubard’s connection with the false charges against you?”
“Positive. He arranged with Filoména Nodari for my betrayal.”
“But why? I cannot see the motive, and yet he must have had one!”
“In his own interests, as well as those of the Englishman.”
“You mean Macbean?”
“Yes – the betrayer!”
Mary’s heart beat quickly. She could not grasp his meaning, yet he refused to tell her plainly the whole of the strange circumstances, apparently fearing to give her pain because she had declared herself to be a friend of the Englishman. He was, of course, in ignorance of their friendship, just as he was in ignorance of her engagement to Jules Dubard.
She was in a dilemma – a dilemma absolute and complete. What Borselli had declared – namely, that the unfortunate captain was in possession of some facts which he would prove if he regained his liberty – seemed to be the truth. Yet if she secured his liberty by pressing her father to pardon him, she would only be deliberately giving to his political enemies a weapon whereby they might hound him from office. While, further, he refused to make her a direct promise to tell the truth, or make the revelations – even if liberated.
What could she do? How could she act? His allegations held her amazed, speechless. He had declared himself to be the victim of the ingenious conspiracy formed by the Frenchman and by George Macbean – the latter, of all men! The whole affair was an enigma that was inexplicable.
That Macbean had entered into a plot against him was utterly beyond her comprehension. He was essentially a Londoner, and had surely no interest whatsoever in the Alpine defences of Italy! Dubard was certainly his friend. Had he not, indeed, told her so? He had, only a fortnight before, expressed a hope that Dubard would soon return from the Pyrenees.
And yet that broken, desperate man – the man with whom she had had that pleasant flirtation during one Roman season – had fallen their victim!
But if so, why was Borselli now anxious that he should be freed in order to make his revelations against the very man Dubard who was his intimate friend – the man who it was said had furnished the Opposition with facts – most of them false – regarding her father’s political shortcomings?
She tried to reason it all out, but became the more and more utterly bewildered.
The reason of the captain’s denunciation of George Macbean was a mystery. When he mentioned the Englishman’s name she had noticed a flash in his deep-set eyes betokening a deadly, deep-rooted hatred. And yet it was upon this very man that all her thoughts and reflections had of late been centred.
As they were alone in that grim, gloomy room with its barred partition – the governor having granted them a private conference – she explained how the Socialists had endeavoured to make capital out of the charges against him with a view to obtaining her father’s dismissal from office. She made no mention of her compact with Dubard or her engagement to him, but merely explained how at the eleventh hour, while Montebruno was on his feet in the Chamber of Deputies, the mysterious note had been placed in his hand which had had the effect of arresting the charges he was about to pour forth.
Solaro listened to her in silence while she gave a description of the scene in the Chamber, and related certain details of the conspiracy which she had learned through her father, the details gathered in secret by Vito Ricci.
“Ah?” he sighed at last, having listened open-mouthed. “It is exactly as I expected. Your father’s enemies are mine. Having drawn me safely into their net, they intend to use my condemnation as proof of the insecurity of the frontier and the culpability of the Minister of War.”
“But if they attack the Minister they must attack me personally?” exclaimed the general in surprise; for he had been in ignorance of the widespread intrigue to hold the Ministry of War up to public ridicule and condemnation. “As the frontier is under my command, I am personally responsible for its security?”
“Exactly,” Solaro said in a somewhat quieter tone. “If His Excellency had ordered a revision of my trial, I should most certainly have been proved innocent, and that being so, the Socialists would have had no direct charge which they could level against the Ministry. But as it is, I stand here condemned, imprisoned as a traitor, and therefore my general is culpable, and above him the Minister himself.”
“My father should have pardoned you long ago. It is infamous!” Mary declared, with rising anger. “By refusing your appeal for a new trial he placed himself in this position of peril!”
“Had I been released I would have given into his hands certain information by which he could have crushed the infamous intrigue against him,” said the man behind the bars in a low, desperate tone. “But now it is too late for a revision of my sentence. Our enemies have triumphed. I am to be sent to Gorgona, sent to my death, while the plot against His Excellency still exists, and the coup will be made against him at the very moment when he feels himself the most secure.” Then, watching the pale face, he added suddenly, “Forgive me, signorina, for speaking frankly like this; he is, I recollect, your father. But he has done me a grave injustice; he could have saved me – saved himself – if he had cared to do so.”
“But you have said that my father fears to give you your liberty?” She remarked. “If that is so, it is fear, and not disinclination, that has prevented him granting you a pardon?”
“It is both,” he declared hoarsely.
“But is there no one else who could assist you – who would expose these enemies and their plot?” she asked.
“No one,” he answered. “The most elaborate preparations were made to set the trap into which I unfortunately fell. I was watched in Paris, in Bologna, in Turin – in garrison and out of it. My every movement was noted, in order that it might be misconstrued. That Frenchman who struck up an acquaintance with me in Paris, and who afterwards lent me money, was in the pay of my enemies; and from that all the damning evidence against me was constructed with an ingenuity that was fiendish. I, an innocent man, was condemned without being given any opportunity of proving my defence! Ask Dubard, or the Englishman. Ask them to tell the truth – if they dare!”
“But tell me more of Mr Macbean,” she cried eagerly. “What do you allege against him?”
“I make no allegations,” he answered in a low, changed voice. “I can suffer in silence. Only when you meet that man tell him that Felice Solaro, from his prison, sends him his warmest remembrances. Then watch his face – that is all. His countenance will tell you the truth.”
Chapter Thirty Six
In the Twilight Hour
For Mary Morini the world was full of base intrigue and uncharitableness, of untruth and false friendship. Four years ago she had returned to Italy from that quiet school at Broadstairs to find herself plunged suddenly into a circle of society, torn by all the conflicting failings of the human heart. The world which she had believed to be so full of beauty was only a wild, stormy waste, whereon each traveller was compelled to fight and battle for reputation and for life. Already world-weary before her time, she was nauseated by the hollow shams about her, tired of the glare of those gilded salons, and appalled by the intrigues on every hand – the intrigues which had for their object her father’s ruin and the sacrifice of all her love, her youth, and happiness.
Often she asked herself if there could be any element of good remaining in such a world as hers. She tried it by the test of her religious principle and found it selfish, indolent, and vain, attracting and swallowing up all who lived within the sphere of its contaminating influence. She had believed herself adapted to the exercise of her affections, that she might love, and trust, and hope to the utmost of her wishes; but, alas! hers had been a rude awakening, and the stern realities of life were to her a cruel and bitter revelation.
In her Christian meekness she constantly sought Divine guidance, even though compelled to live amid that gay whirl of Rome; for the date of her marriage was rapidly approaching, the day when the man to whom she had bartered herself in exchange for her father’s life would come forward and claim her.
The season, as society knew it, was far advanced, and although her mind was filled by those grave suspicions conjured up by Solaro’s allegations, she frequently met and talked with George Macbean. His duties as her father’s secretary took him to the palace a great deal, and sometimes of an evening they met at various official functions to which the young Englishman had also been bidden.
Out of the very poverty and the feebleness of her life, out of sheer desperation, she became drawn towards him, and the bond of friendship became still more closely cemented, even though those suspicions ever arose within her. He was Dubard’s friend – he had admitted that to her – and as Dubard’s friend she mistrusted him.
She had no friend in whom she could confide, or of whom she might ask advice. She exchanged few such confidences with her mother, while she was unable to reveal to her father her secret visit to Solaro’s prison for fear of his displeasure. It was at this crisis of her young life that she felt the absolute want of a participator in her joys, a recipient of her secrets, and a soother of her sorrows, and it was this sense of utter loneliness which rendered the young Englishman’s society so welcome to her.
Weeks had passed since her painful interview with poor Solaro. The dull burden of accumulated sorrows hung heavily upon her. She had begun afresh. She had made a fresh dedication of her heart to God. She had commenced her patient work of unravelling the mystery of the great intrigue by which to save her father, and to escape herself from the fate to which she was consigned – she had commenced the work as though it had never been undertaken before, supported by Christian faith, and ever striving not to prejudge the man whose friendship had now become so necessary to her existence.
What the unfortunate prisoner had told her, however, had opened her eyes to many plain facts, the chief of them being that Borselli had, by his suggestion that she should secure the captain’s release, endeavoured to induce her to bring ruin upon her own father. For the Minister to sign a decree of pardon now was impossible. Such an action must inevitably cause his downfall; therefore it was necessary that the captain should remain in prison, although innocent.
In Rome a sudden tranquillity had fallen upon the face of that ever-changing political world around the throne. Mary, who was seen at every ball and at every official dinner, still retained her golden and exuberant youth, her joyous step, her sweet smile, and the world believed her very happy. She was to marry Jules Dubard. But at home, in the hours of loneliness in her own room, there fell upon her the grim tragedy of it all, and she shed tears, bitter tears, because she was still fettered, still unable to discover the truth.
Two years ago she had possessed all the freshness of unwearied nature, the glow of health, that life-spring of all the energies of thought and action – the power to believe as well as to hope – the earnestness of zeal unchilled by disappointment, the first awakening of joy, the clear perception of a mind unbiassed in its search of truth, the fervour of an untroubled soul. But alas! the world had now disappointed her. Like Felice Solaro, like her father, she too had fallen a victim of those unscrupulous persons whose base craft and low cunning were alike mysterious and unfathomable.
George Macbean, watching her as closely as he did, realised the gradual change in her, and was much puzzled. True, she wore the same magnificent Paris-made gowns, was as humorous and irresponsible, and laughed as gaily as she had done in those summer days in England. Yet sometimes, as they sat alone, he detected that burden of grief and sadness that oppressed her mind. Soon she was to marry Dubard, yet her attitude was by no means that of the self-satisfied bride. Ignorant of the bitter reflections within her, he was, of course, much mystified at those gloomy, despairing words that sometimes involuntarily fell from her lips. He did not know, as she so vividly realised, that the day she married Jules Dubard her beloved father would again be at the mercy of those who sought his downfall.
Her Excellency had suggested a visit to Paris for the trousseau, but this she had declined. She had no desire for the gaiety which a visit to the French capital would entail. Therefore all the dresses and lingerie were being made in Florence and Rome; a magnificent trousseau, which a princess of the blood might have envied, for Camillo Morini never spared any expense where his daughter was concerned.
Yet she scarcely looked at the rich and costly things as they arrived in huge boxfuls, but ordered Teresa to put them aside, sighing within herself that the world was so soon to make merry over the great tragedy of her life.
Dubard was still at Bayonne, detained on business connected with his estate. He wrote frequently, and, much against her own inclination, she was compelled to reply to his letters. More than one person in her own set remarked upon the prolonged absence of the popular young Frenchman who had become so well known in the Eternal City, but only one person guessed the true reason – and that person was George Macbean.
Late one afternoon she had been driving on the Pincio, as was her habit each day. She was alone, her mother being too unwell to go out, and just as the passeggiata, or fashionable promenade, was over, she passed the young Englishman walking alone. She bowed and drove on, but presently stopped her victoria, alighted, and telling the coachman that she would walk home, dismissed him.
Most of the carriages had already left that beautiful hill-garden from the terraces of which one obtains such wonderful panoramas of the ancient city, and it being nearly six o’clock, the promenaders were now mostly Cookites, the women bloused and tweed-skirted, and the men in various costumes of England, from the inevitable blue serge suit to the breeches and golf-cap of “the seaside,” – people with whom she was unacquainted. In a few moments they met, and he turned happily and walked in her direction.
“I’m cramped,” she declared. “I’ve been in the carriage nearly three mortal hours, first paying calls with father, and then here alone. I saw you, so it was a good opportunity of getting a walk. You go to the Princess Palmieri’s to-night, I suppose?”
“Yes, Her Highness has sent me a card,” he answered – “thanks to your father, I suppose.” As she walked beside him, in a beautiful gown of pale dove grey with a large black hat, he glanced at her admiringly and added, “I saw in to-day’s Tribuna that the count is expected back in two or three days. Have you had news of him?”
“I received a letter yesterday – from Biarritz. He is with his aunt, who is very unwell, and is paying a dutiful visit before coming here.”
In silence they walked on, passing the water-clock and descending the hill until they came to that small piazza with the stone balustrade that affords such a magnificent vista of the ancient city. Here they halted to enjoy the view, as the tourists were enjoying it. The wonderful Eternal City with its hundred towers lay below them in the calm golden mist of evening. It was a scene she had looked upon hundreds of times, yet at that moment she was attracted by the crowd of “personally conducted” who stood at the stone balustrade and gazed away in the direction of where the huge dome of St. Peter’s loomed up through the haze. Like many a cosmopolitan, she took a mischievous delight in mingling with a crowd of English tourists and hearing their comments upon things Italian – remarks that were often drily humorous. She stood at her companion’s side, chatting with him while the light faded, the glorious afterglow died away, and the tourists, recollecting the hour of their respective tables d’hôte, descended the hill to the city. And then, when they were alone, he turned to her and, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, said —
“I suppose very soon you will leave Rome and live in Paris. Has the count made any plans?”
“We live this summer at the château,” was her answer. “The winter he intends to spend on the Riviera.”
“And Rome will lose you!” he exclaimed in regret. “At the Countess Bardi’s last night they were discussing it, and everyone expressed sorrow that you should leave them.”
She sighed deeply, and in her eyes he thought he detected the light of tears.
“For many things I shall really not be sorry to leave Rome,” she answered blankly. “Only I wish I were going to live in dear old England. I have no love for Paris, and the artificiality of the Riviera I detest. It is the plague-spot of Europe. What people can really see in it beyond the attraction of gambling I never can understand. The very atmosphere is hateful to anyone with a spark of self-respect.”
They were leaning on the old grey stonework, their faces turned to the darkening valley where wound the Tiber, the centre of the civilisation of all the ages, the great misty void wherein the lights were already beginning to twinkle.
Furtively he glanced at her countenance, and saw upon her white brow a look of deep, resigned despair. He loved her – this beautiful woman who was to sacrifice herself to the man who he knew had entrapped her, and yet whom he dare not denounce for fear of incriminating himself. He, who worshipped her – who loved her in truth and in silence as no man had ever loved a woman – was compelled to stand by and witness the tragedy! Night after night, when he thought of it as he paced his room, he clenched his hands in sheer despair and cried to himself in agony.
Dubard was to be her husband – Jules Dubard, the man who, knowing of his presence in Rome, feared to return to claim her as his wife!
“You are very silent, Miss Mary!” he managed to say at last, watching her pale, beautiful face set away towards the dark valley.
“I was thinking,” she answered, turning slowly, facing him, and looking straight into his eyes.
“Of what?”
“Shall I tell you frankly?”
“Certainly,” he said, smiling. “You are always frank with me, are you not?”
“Well, I was thinking of a man who was once my friend – a man whom I believe you have cause to remember,” she replied in a meaning tone – “a man named Felice Solaro!”
“Felice Solaro!” he gasped, quickly starting back, his cheeks blanching as he repeated the name. “If Felice Solaro is a friend of yours, Miss Mary, then he has probably told you the truth – the ghastly truth?” he cried hoarsely, as his face fell. “He has revealed to you the mystery concerning General Sazarac! Tell me – tell me what allegation has he made against me?”
