CHAPTER IV.
EVENTS AT RAGUSA.
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Meanwhile what was taking place at Ragusa?
Mme. Bathory no longer lived there. After her son's death, Borik and a few of her friends had persuaded her to give up the house in the Rue Marinella. At first it seemed as though the unhappy mother had been driven mad, and strong-minded though she was, she had really given signs of derangement that alarmed her physicians. Under their advice she was removed to the little village of Vinticello, where a friend of her family was living. There she would receive every attention, but what consolation could they offer to the mother and the wife who had suffered twice over in her love for her husband and her son?
Her old servant would not leave her, and the house in the Rue Marinella having been shut up, he had followed to Vinticello to become the humble and assiduous confidant of her sorrows.
They had ceased altogether to trouble themselves about Sava Toronthal, and were even unaware that the marriage had been put off for some time. And in fact the young lady's health necessitated her keeping to her bed. She had received a blow as unexpected as it was terrible to her. He whom she loved was dead—dead of despair probably! And it was his corpse they were taking to the grave at the very moment she was leaving the house on her way to her hateful wedding! For ten days, that is till the 16th of July, Sava was in a most alarming state. Her mother would not leave her. Moreover that care and attention was the last her mother could give, for she herself had received a fatal blow.
During these long hours what thoughts were interchanged between mother and daughter? We can imagine, and we need not enlarge on them. Two names were of constant recurrence amid their sobs and tears—one, that of Sarcany, to be cursed, the other that of Pierre, to be wept over.
From these conversations in which Silas Toronthal refrained from taking part—for he even avoided seeing his daughter—it resulted that Mme. Toronthal made one more appeal to her husband. She asked him to consent to break off a marriage which Sava regarded only with fear and horror.
The banker remained unmoved in his resolution. Had he been left to himself he might, perhaps, have yielded, but in the power of his accomplice, more even than may be imagined, he refused to listen to his wife. The marriage of Sava and Sarcany was decided on, and it would take place as soon as the state of her health would allow.
It is easy to imagine what was Sarcany's irritation when this unexpected incident intervened, with what ill-dissembled anger he saw his game interfered with, and with what persistency he attacked Toronthal. It was only a delay, doubtless, but the delay if prolonged would lead to the collapse of the whole scheme on which he had arranged his future. And, besides, he knew that Sava felt for him nothing but insurmountable aversion.
And what would this aversion become if the young lady suspected that Pierre Bathory had been stabbed by the man who was forced upon her as her husband? For his part he was only too pleased at having had the chance of getting rid of his rival. Not a shade of remorse did he feel, for he was dead to every human sentiment.
“It is lucky,” said he one day to Toronthal, “that that fellow thought of killing himself! There might have been too many Bathorys! Heaven does indeed protect us!”
And who was there left of these three families of Sandorf, Zathmar and Bathory? An old woman whose days were numbered! Yes! Heaven did seem to protect the scoundrels, and assuredly would carry its protection to its extreme limits the day that Sarcany became the husband of Sava Toronthal!
Nevertheless it appeared as though Heaven were trying people's patience very much, for the delay as to the marriage grew more and more prolonged. No sooner had Sava recovered—physically, that is—and Sarcany was again thinking of realizing his projects, than Mme. Toronthal fell ill. She had indeed lived out her life. After all that had occurred at Trieste when she learned to what a scoundrel she was bound, after all her troubles about Pierre, in whom she had tried to repair the wrong done to his family, after all she had suffered since Sarcany's unwelcome return, her illness could hardly be wondered at.
From the first it was evident that her illness would be fatal. A few days of life were all that her doctors could promise her. She was dying of exhaustion. Nothing could save her, even if Pierre Bathory could rise from his grave to become her daughter's husband.
Sava could now return with interest the care and attention she had received from her, and never left her bedside by night or day.
What Sarcany felt at this new delay can be imagined Daily he came to abuse the banker, who like him was powerless. All they could do was to wait for the end.
On the 28th of July Mme. Toronthal seemed to have recovered a little of her strength; and then she fell into a burning fever, which threatened to carry her off in forty-eight hours.
In this fever she was seized with delirium: she began to wander in her mind, and many unintelligible phrases escaped her.
One word—one name repeated incessantly—came as a surprise to Sava. It was that of Bathory, not the name of the young man, but that of his mother, that the sick woman appealed to, prayed to, and returned to again and again as if she was assailed with remorse.
“Pardon! madame! Forgive me!”
And when madame during a lull in the fever was interrgated by her daughter—
“Hush! Sava! Hush! I said nothing!” she exclaimed in terror.
The night between the 30th and 31st of July arrived For a little the doctors might think that the fever, having reached its maximum, was about to subside. During the day she had been better, there had been no mental troubles and the change in the patient seemed somewhat surprising. The night promised to be as calm as the day.
But if so, it was because Mme. Toronthal on the point of death discovered an energy of which she had previously thought herself incapable. She had made her peace with God, and taken a resolution which she only waited for the opportunity to carry out.
That night she insisted that Sava should go to bed for a few hours. Although she strongly objected to leave her, yet she did not think it right to disobey her mother's commands, and at eleven o'clock she went to her own room.
Mme. Toronthal was then alone. All in the house were asleep, and a silence reigned which has been aptly named the silence of death.
Mme. Toronthal rose from her bed, and this sick woman, whom all thought too feeble to make even the slightest movement, dressed herself and sat down in front of her writing-table.
Then she took a sheet of letter paper and with trembling hand wrote a few lines and signed them. Then she slipped the letter into an envelope, which she sealed, and which she thus addressed:
“Mme. Bathory, Rue Marinella, Stradone, Ragusa.”
Mme. Toronthal, then making a great effort to overcome the fatigue she had thus caused herself, opened the door of her room, descended the main staircase, crossed the court-yard and by the small gate let herself out into the Stradone.
The Stradone was then dark and deserted, for it was nearly midnight.
With tottering steps Mme. Toronthal went along the pavement to the left for some fifty feet or so and stopped before a post-box into which she threw her letter. And then she returned to the hotel.
But all the strength she had mustered was now exhaust- ed, and she fell helpless and motionless on the step of the side gate. There an hour afterward she was found. There Toronthal and Sava were brought to recognize her, and from there they took her back to her room before she had recovered her consciousness.
The next day Toronthal informed Sarcany of what had happened. Neither one nor the other suspected that Mme. Toronthal had gone that night to post a letter in the Stradone. But why had she gone out of the house? They were unable to explain, and it proved to them a subject of great anxiety.
The sick woman lingered throughout another twenty-four hours. She gave no sign of life save by occasional convulsive starts, the last efforts of a soul about to escape. Sava had taken her hand, as if to still keep her in this world, where she herself would soon be so forsaken. But the lips of the mother were dumb now, and the name of Bathory came no more from them. Doubtless, her conscience tranquilized, her last wish accomplished, Mme. Toronthal had no longer prayer to offer or pardon to implore.
The following night, toward three of the morning, while Sava found herself alone with the dying one, the latter made a movement and her hand touched that of her daughter.
At this contact her eyes half opened and her gaze fell upon Sava. This gaze was so questioning that Sava could not mistake it.
“Mother, mother,” she said, “what is that you wish?”
Mme. Toronthal made a sign.
“To speak to me?”
“Yes,” came distinctly from the mother.
Sava was bending over the bedside, but a new sign caused her to approach still nearer. She laid her head close to her mother's.
“My child, I am about to die!”
“Mother—mother!”
“Softly,” murmured Mme. Toronthal. “More softly that no one hear us!”
Then, after a new effort—
“Sava,” she said, “I have to ask your pardon—your pardon for the wrong I have done you—the wrong I have not had the courage to hinder.”
“You—mother—you to have wronged me! You to ask my pardon!”
“One last kiss, Sava!—yes—the last—to say that you will pardon!”
The young girl pressed her lips gently on the pale forehead of the dying woman.
The latter took sudden strength and passed an arm about her daughter's neck. Then raising herself and regarding the girl with a terrifying fixedness:
“Sava,” she said, “Sava, you are not the daughter of Silas Toronthal! You are not my daughter!—your father—”
She could not conclude. A convulsion threw her from, the arms of Sava, and her soul fled with these last words.
The young girl bent over the dead, striving to restore her. It was useless.
Then she called aloud, until they ran in from all parts of the hotel. Silas Toronthal was one of the first to arrive in the chamber of his wife.
Perceiving him, Sava, seized with an irresistible feeling of repulsion, recoiled from this man, whom now she had a right to despise, to hate, for he was not her father. The dead had said this, and one does not die upon a falsehood.
Then Sava fled, terrified at that which had been said by the unhappy woman who had loved her as a daughter—all the more terrified perhaps at that which she had not had time to say.
On the third day the funeral of Mme. Toronthal occurred with ostentation. The crowd of friends that every rich man numbers surrounded the banker. Near him marched Sarcany, thus affirming by his presence that nothing was altered in the projects which would cause him to enter the Toronthal family. This was, in truth, his hope; but should he never realize it, it would not be because he had not surmounted many obstacles. Sarcany believed, moreover, that circumstances could only be favorable to the accomplishment of his plans, since they left Sava so completely at his mercy.
The arrangements which had been hindered by the illness of Mme. Toronthal, would be prolonged by her death. During the period of mourning there could be no talk of marriage. The proprieties demanded that several months at least should have elapsed since the decease.
Sarcany, eager to obtain his object, must have found this annoying. Be that as it might, necessity compelled him to respect the proprieties, but not without lively discussions between himself and Silas Toronthal. And these discussions always terminated with this sentence of the banker's:
“I can do no better; and besides, providing the marriage occurs within five months hence, you have no reason to complain.”
In addition to this, the two had not ceased to he disturbed by the strange action of Mme. Toronthal just before ber death. The idea even occurred to Sarcany that the dying woman might have wished to post a letter, whose destination she kept a secret.
The banker, to whom Sarcany communicated this suspicion, was not indisposed to believe it might be so. “If it is,” said Sarcany, “this letter threatens us directly and gravely. Your wife always upheld Sava against me. She even sustained my rival, and who knows if in her dying moments she may not have found a strength one would have believed impossible, to betray our secrets. In this case ought we not to forestall it, and leave a city where you and I have more to lose than gain?”
“If this letter threatens us,” observed Silas Toronthal some days later, “the menace would have already produced its effect, and thus far nothing is altered in our situation.”
To this argument Sarcany knew not how to answer. In reality if Mme. Toronthal's letter referred to their future projects nothing had come of it, and there seemed no danger in their remaining there. When danger appeared it would be time to act.
This is what happened, unanticipated by the twain, five days after the death of Mme. Toronthal.
Since the death of her mother Sava had kept aloof, not even leaving her room for her meals. The banker, constrained whenever he found himself vis-à-vis with her, sought not such a tête-à-tête, which could only prove embarrassing. He allowed her to act as she pleased, and his part lived in another portion of the hotel.
More than once Sarcany had severely censured Silas Toronthal for accepting this situation. In consequence of the arrangement he had now no opportunity to meet the young girl. This did not conform to his ulterior designs. And this he explained very emphatically to the banker. Notwithstanding there could be no question of celebrating the marriage during the months of mourning, he did not wish that Sava should accustom herself to the idea that her father and himself had renounced their thoughts of the union.
At length Sarcany appeared so imperious and exacting before Silas Toronthal, that the latter, on the 16th of August, sent word to Sava that he wished to speak with her that same evening. As he also sent word that Sarcany desired to be present at the interview, he expected a refusal. But none came. Sava replied that she would abide by his orders.
Evening arrived, Silas Toronthal and Sarcany awaited Sava impatiently in the grand salon. The first of the two decided not to be moved by anything, having such rights as paternal authority gives. The second resolved to remain silent to listen to what was said, wishing above all to try and discover what the secret thoughts of the young girl were. He feared constantly that she might be informed of certain things to an extent of which they knew not.
Sava entered the salon at the hour appointed. Sarcany arose at her appearance, but to his salutation the young girl responded only with an inclination of the head. She seemed hardly to have seen him, or rather not to wish to see him.
At a motion from Silas Toronthal, Sava seated herself. Then, with countenance paler in contrast with her garb of mourning, she listened coldly to the remarks addressed to her.
“Sava,” said the banker, “I have respected your sorrow at the death of your mother by not disturbing your solitude. But following these sad occurrences, one finds one's self brought necessarily to consider certain affairs of interest. Although you have not yet attained your majority, it is well that you should know what portion accrues to you in the inheritance of—”
“If it be only a question of fortune,” said Sava, “it is unnecessary to discuss it. I lay claim to nothing in the inheritance you refer to.”
Silas Toronthal moved uneasily; his face displayed a suspicion of disappointment, moreover astonishment and annoyance.
“I believe, Sava,” resumed Silas Toronthal, “that you have not realized the import of your words. Whether you wish it or no, you are the heir of Madame Toronthal, your mother, and the law obliges me to render account to you when you come of age.”
“Unless I renounce the inheritance,” the girl replied tranquilly.
“And why?”
“Because, beyond question, I have no right to it.”
The banker sat up in his chair. He had hardly expected such a response. As for Sarcany, he said nothing. In his opinion Sava was playing a game, and he occupied himself with trying to see through it.
“I do not know, Sava,” said Silas Toronthal, impatient at her cold responses, “I do not know what such words signify, nor who has suggested them. Besides, I am not here to discuss law and jurisprudence. You are under my guardianship. You are not qualified to accept or refuse, Now, you will submit to the authority of your father: you will not deny it, I fancy?”
“Perhaps!” said Sava.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Silas Toronthal, beginning to lose composure. “But you speak three too soon, Sava. When you have attained your majority you may do what you please with your fortune. Until then your interests are intrusted to me, and I will guard them as I intend.”
“Be it so,” replied Sava. “I will wait.”
“And what will you wait for?” replied the banker. “You doubtless forget that your situation will be altered as soon as the usages permit. You will then have less right to manage your fortune when you are not the only one interested in the business—”
“Yes!—the business!” answered Sava with contempt.
“Believe me,” said Sarcany, aroused by the word, which had been pronounced in a tone of the most seathing disdain, “believe me, that a more honorable sentiment—”
Sava did not seem to hear him, and kept her eyes fixed on the banker, who continued, angrily:
“Not the only one—for your mother's death in no way has altered our plans.”
“What plans?” asked the girl.
“The marriage you pretend to forget, and which is to make Mr. Sarcany my son-in-law.”
“Are you sure that this marriage will make Mr. Sarcany your son-in-law?”
The insinuation this time was so direct that Toronthal would have left the room to hide his confusion. But Sarcany, with a gesture, kept him back. He wished to find out all he could, to know what it all meant.
“Listen, my father,” said Sava, “and it is for the last time I give you the title. It is not I Mr. Sarcany wants to marry; he wants to marry the fortune that I abandon from to-day! Great as may be his impudence, he will not dare deny it! You remind me that I had consented to this marriage, and my reply is easy. Yes! I would have sacrificed myself when I thought my father's honor was at stake; but my father you know well is in no way concerned in this hateful scheme! If you wish to enrich Mr. Sarcany give him your money. That is all he wants!”
The girl rose and walked toward the door.
“Sava,” said Toronthal, barring the way, “there is in your words such incoherence that I do not understand them—that you probably do not understand them yourself. Has the death of your mother—?”
“My mother!—yes, she was my mother—my mother in her feelings toward me!”
“If grief has not deprived you of reason,” continued Toronthal, who heard only himself; “yes, if you are not mad—”
“Mad!”
“But what I have resolved on shall take place, and before six months have elapsed you shall be Sarcany's wife.”
“Never!”
“I know how to compel you.”
“And by what right?” answered the girl, indignantly.
“The right given me by parental authority.”
“You—sir! You are not my father, and my name is not Sava Toronthal!”
At these words the banker stepped back speechless, and the girl, without even turning her head, walked out of the room.
Sarcany, who had been carefully watching Sava during the interview, was not surprised at the way it ended. He had suspected it. What he feared had taken place. Sava knew that she was bound by no tie to the Toronthals.
The banker was overwhelmed at the unexpected blow. He was hardly master of himself. Sarcany, therefore, began to sum up the case as it stood, while he simply listened. Besides he could have nothing but approval for what his old accomplice proposed with so much indisputable logic.
“We can no longer reckon on Sava voluntarily consenting to this marriage,” he said. “But for reasons we know, it is more than ever necessary that the marriage should take place! What does she know of our past life? Nothing! For she told you nothing! What she knows is that she is not your daughter, that is all! Does she know her father? Not likely! His would have been the first name she would have thrown in your face! Has she known our position for long? No, probably since the moment of Madame Toronthal's death!”
Toronthal nodded his approval of Sarcany's argument. He was right, as we know, in his suspicions as to how the girl had gained her information, as to how long she had known it, and as to what she had learned of the secret of her birth.
“Now to conclude,” continued Sarcany. “Little as she knows of what concerns her, and although she is ignorant of our proceedings in the past, we are both of us in danger—you in the position you hold at Ragusa, I in what I should gain by marriage, and which I have no intention of giving up! What we must do then is this, and we must do it as soon as possible. Leave Ragusa, you and I, and take Sava with us without a word to any one either to-day or to-morrow, then return here only when the marriage is over, and when she is my wife Sava will have to keep her mouth shut. Once we get her away she will be so removed from outside influences that we shall have nothing to fear from her. It will be my business to make her consent to this marriage which will bring me in so much, and if I don't succeed, why then—”
Toronthal agreed; the position was the same as it had been with the cryptogram. He did not see how to resist. He was in his accomplice's power, and could not do otherwise. And why should he?
That evening it was agreed that the plan should be put into execution before Sava could leave the house. Then Toronthal and Sarcany separated, and set to work as we shall soon see.
The next day but one Mme. Bathory, accompanied by Borik, had left the village of Vinticello to return to the house in the Rue Marinella for the first time since her son's death. She had resolved to leave Ragusa forever, and had come to prepare for her departure.
When Borik opened the door he found a letter which had been slipped into the letter-box.
It was the letter Mme. Toronthal had posted the day before her death.
Mme. Bathory took the letter, opened it, looked first at the signature, and then read the few lines that had been traced by the dying hand, and revealed the secret of Sava's birth.
What sudden connection was there between the names of Sava and Pierre in Mme. Bathory's mind?
“She! He!” she exclaimed.
And without another word—without answering her old servant, whom she thrust aside as he tried to hold her, she rushed out, ran down the Rue Marinella into the Stradone, and did not stop till she reached Toronthal's house.
Did she know what she was doing? Did she know that in Sava's interest it would be better for her to act with less precipitation and more prudence? No! she was irresistibly urged toward the girl as if her husband and her son had come from their grave and sent her to the rescue.
She knocked at the door. The door opened. A domestic inquired her busines.
Mme. Bathory wished to see Sava.
Miss Toronthal was not in the house.
Mme. Bathory would speak with Mr. Toronthal.
The banker had gone away the day before without saying where he was going, and he had taken his daughter with him.
Mme. Bathory staggered and fell into the arms of Borik, who had just come up to her.
And when the old man had taken her back to the house in the Rue Marinella—
“To-morrow, Borik,” she said, “to-morrow we will go together to the wedding of Sava and Pierre!”
Mme. Bathory was mad.