At this moment the cathedral-clock strikes four. This is the first sound that has reached the marchesa from the outer world since she has entered these rooms. It rouses her from the thralldom of her thoughts. It recalls her to the outer world. Four o'clock! Then she has been shut up for five hours! She must go at once, or she may be missed by her household. If she is missed, she may be followed—watched. Casting a searching look round, to assure herself that all is in its place, she takes from her girdle the key she always wears, and lets herself out into the great hall. She relocks the door, drawing the velvet curtains carefully over it. With greater caution she unfastens the other door (the entrance) on the staircase. Peeping through the curtains, she assures herself that no one is on the stairs. Then she softly recloses it, and rapidly ascends the stairs to the second story.
That day six months, on the anniversary of Castruccio's birth, which falls in the month of March, she will return again to the state-rooms. No one has ever accompanied her on these strange vigils. Only her friend, the Cavaliere Trenta, knows that she goes there. Even to him she rarely alludes to it. It is her own secret. Her inner life is with the past. Her thoughts rest with the dead. It is the living who are but shadows.
The marchesa was in a very bad humor. Not only did she stay at home all the day of the festival of the Holy Countenance by reason of the solemn anniversary which occurred at that time, but she shut herself up the following day also. When the old servant (old inside and out) in his shabby livery, who acted as butler, crept into her room, and asked at what time "the eccellenza would take her airing on the ramparts"—the usual drive of the Lucchese ladies—when they not only drive, but draw up under the plane-trees, gossip, and eat sweetmeats and ices—she had answered, in a tone she would have used to a decrepit dog who troubled her, "Shut the door and begone!"
She had been snappish to Enrica. She had twitted her with wanting to go to the Orsetti ball, although Enrica had never been to any ball or any assembly whatever in her life, and no word had been spoken about it. Enrica never did speak; she had been disciplined into silence.
Enrica, as has been said, was the marchesa's niece, and lived with her. She was the only child of her sister, who died when she was born. This sister (herself, as well as the marchesa,bornGuinigi Ruscellai) had also married a Guinigi, a distant cousin of the marchesa's husband, belonging to a third branch of the family, settled at Mantua. Of this collateral branch, all had died out. Antonio Guinigi, of Mantua, Enrica's father, in the prime of life, was killed in a duel, resulting from one of those small social affronts that so frequently do provoke duels in Italy. (I knew a certain T—— who called out a certain G—— because G—— had said T——'s rooms were not properly carpeted.) Generally these encounters with swords are as trifling in their results as in their origin. But the duel in question, fought by Antonio Guinigi, was unfortunately not so. He died on the spot. Enrica, when two years old, was an orphan. Thus it came that she had known no home but the home of her aunt. The marchesa had never shown her any particular kindness. She had ordered her servants to take care of her. That was all. Scarcely ever had she kissed her; never passed her hand among the sunny curls that fell upon the quiet child's face and neck. The marchesa, in fact, had not so much as noticed her childish beauty and enticing ways.
Enrica had grown up accustomed to bear with her aunt's haughty, ungracious manners and capricious temper. She scarcely knew that there was any thing to bear. She had been left to herself as long as she could remember any thing. A peasant—Teresa, her foster-mother—had come with her from Mantua, and from Teresa alone she received such affection as she had ever known. A mere animal affection, however, which lost its value as she grew into womanhood.
Thus it was that Enrica came to accept the marchesa's rough tongue, her arrogance, and her caprices, as a normal state of existence. She never complained. If she suffered, it was in silence. To reason with the marchesa, much more dispute with her, was worse than useless. She was not accustomed to be talked to, certainly not by her niece. It only exasperated her and fixed her more doggedly in whatever purpose she might have in hand. But there was a certain stern sense of justice about her when left to herself—if only the demon of her family pride were not aroused, then she was inexorable—that would sometimes come to the rescue. Yet, under all the tyranny of this neutral life which circumstances had imposed on her, Enrica, unknown to herself—for how should she, who knew so little, know herself?—grew up to have a strong will. She might be bent, but she would never break. In this she resembled the marchesa. Gentle, loving, and outwardly submissive, she was yet passively determined. Even the marchesa came to be dimly conscious of this, although she considered it as utterly unimportant, otherwise than to punish and to repress.
Shut up within the dreary palace at Lucca, or in the mountain solitude of Corellia, Enrica yearned for freedom. She was like a young bird, full-fledged and strong, that longs to leave the parent-nest—to stretch its stout wings on the warm air—to soar upward into the light!
Now the light had come to Enrica. It came when she first saw Count Nobili. It shone in her eyes, it dazzled her, it intoxicated her. On that day a new world opened before her—a fair and pleasant world, light with the dawn of love—a world as different as golden summer to the winter of her home. How she gloried in Nobili! How she loved him!—his comely looks, his kindling smile (like sunshine everywhere), his lordly ways, his triumphant prosperity! He had come to her, she knew not how. She had never sought him. He had come—come like fate. She never asked herself if it was wrong or right to love him. How could she help it? Was he not born to be loved? Was he not her own—a thousand times her own—as he told her—"forever?" She believed in him as she believed in God. She neither knew nor cared whither she was drifting, so that it was with him! She was as one sailing with a fair wind on an endless sea—a sea full of sunlight—sailing she knew not where! Think no evil of her, I pray you. She was not wicked nor deceitful—only ignorant, with such ignorance as made the angels fall.
As yet Nobili and Enrica had only met in such manner as has been told by old Carlotta to her gossip Brigitta. Letters, glances, sighs, had passed across the street, from palace to palace at the Venetian casements—under the darkly-ivied archway of the Moorish garden—at the cathedral in the gray evening light, or in the earliest glow of summer mornings—and this, so seldom! Every time they had met Nobili implored Enrica, passionately, to escape from the thralldom of her life, implored her to become his wife. With his pleading eyes fixed upon her, he asked her "why she should sacrifice him to the senseless pride of her aunt? He whose whole life was hers?"
But Enrica shrank from compliance, with a secret sense that she had no right to do what he asked; no right to marry without her aunt's consent. Her love was her own to give. She had thought it all out for herself, pacing up and down under the cool marble arcades of the Moorish garden, the splash of the fountain in her ears—Teresa had told her the same—her love was her own to give. What had her aunt done for her, her sister's child, but feed and clothe her? Indeed, as Teresa said, the marchesa had done but little else. Enrica was as unconscious as Teresa of those marriage schemes of her aunt which centred in herself. Had she known what was reserved for her, she would better have understood the marchesa's nature; then she might have acted differently. But heretofore there had been no question of her marriage. Although she was seventeen, she had always been treated as a mere child. She scarcely dared to speak in her aunt's presence, or to address a question to her. Her love, then, she thought, was her own to bestow; but more?—No, no even to Nobili. He urged, he entreated, he reproached her, but in vain. He implored her to inform the marchesa of their engagement. (Nobili could not offer to do this himself; the marchesa would have refused to admit him within her door.) But Enrica would not consent to do even this. She knew her aunt too well to trust her with her secret. She knew that she was both subtle, and, where her own plans were concerned, or her will thwarted, treacherous also.
Enrica had been taught not only to obey the marchesa implicitly, but never to dispute her will. Hitherto she had had no will but hers. How, then, could she all at once shake off the feeling of awe, almost terror, with which her aunt inspired her? Besides, was not the very sound of Nobili's name abhorrent to her? Why the marchesa should abhor him or his name, Enrica could not tell. It was a mystery to her altogether beyond her small experience of life. But it was so. No, she would say nothing; that was safest. The marchesa, if displeased, was quite capable of carrying her away from Lucca to Corellia—perhaps leaving her there alone in the mountains. She might even shut her up in a convent for life!—Then she should die!
No, she would say nothing.
The marchesa was, as I have said, in a very bad humor. She had by no means recovered from what she conceived to be the affront put upon her by the brilliant display made by Count Nobili, at the festival of the Holy Countenance, nor, indeed, from the festival itself.
She had had the satisfaction of shutting up her palace, it is true; but she was not quite sure if this had impressed the public mind of Lucca as she had intended. She felt painful doubts as to whether the splendors opposite had not so entirely engrossed public attention that no eye was left to observe any thing else—at least, in that street. It was possible, she thought, that another year it might be wiser not to shut up her palace at all, but so far to overcome her feelings as to exhibit the superb hangings, the banners, the damask, and cloth of gold, used in the mediaeval festivals and processions, and thus outdo the modern tinsel of Count Nobili.
Besides the festival, and Count Nobili's audacity, the marchesa had a further cause for ill-humor. No one had come on that evening to play her usual game of whist. Even Trenta had deserted her. She had said to herself that when she—the Marchesa Guinigi—"received," no other company, no other engagement whatever, ought to interfere with the honor that her company conferred. These were valid causes of ill-humor to any lady of the marchesa's humor.
She was seated now in the sitting-room of her own particular suite, one of three small and rather stuffy rooms, on the second floor. These rooms consisted of an anteroom, covered with a cretonne paper of blue and brown, a carpetless floor, a table, and some common, straw chairs placed against the wall. From the anteroom two doors led into two bedrooms, one on either side. Another door, opposite the entrance, opened into the sitting-room.
All the windows this way faced toward the garden, the wall of which ran parallel to the palace and to the street. The marchesa's room had flaunting green walls with a red border; the ceiling was gaudily painted with angels, flowers, and festoons. Some colored prints hung on the walls—a portrait of the Empress Eugénie on horseback, in a Spanish dress, and four glaring views of Vesuvius in full eruption. A divan, covered with well-worn chintz, ran round two sides of the room. Between the ranges of the graceful casements stood a marble console-table, with a mirror in a black frame. An open card-table was placed near the marchesa. On the table there was a pack of not over-clean cards, some markers, and a pair of candles (the candles still unlighted, for the days are long, and it is only six o'clock). There was not a single ornament in the whole room, nor any object whatever on which the eye could rest with pleasure. White-cotton curtains concealed the delicate tracery and the interlacing columns of the Venetian windows. Beneath lay the Moorish garden, entered from the street by an arched gate-way, over which long trails of ivy hung. Beautiful in itself, the Moorish garden was an incongruous appendage to a Gothic palace. One of the Guinigi, commanding for the Emperor Charles V. in Spain, saw Granada and the Alhambra. On his return to Lucca, he built this architectural plaisance on a bare plot of ground, used for jousts and tilting. That is its history. There it has been since. It is small—a city garden—belted inside by a pointed arcade of black-and-white marble.
In the centre is a fountain. The glistening waters shoot upward refreshingly in the warm evening air, to fall back on the heads of four marble lions, supporting a marble basin. Fine white gravel covers the ground, broken by statues and vases, and tufts of flowering shrubs growing luxuriantly under the shelter of the arcade—many-colored altheas, flaming pomegranates, graceful pepper-trees with bright, beady seeds, and magnolias, as stalwart as oaks, hanging over the fountain.
The strong perfume of the magnolia-blossoms, still white upon the boughs, is wafted upward to the open window of the marchesa's sitting-room; the sun is low, and the shadows of the pointed arches double themselves upon the ground. Shadows, too, high up the horizon, penetrate into the room, and strike across the variegated scagliola floor, and upon a table in the centre, on which a silver tray is placed, with glasses of lemonade. Round the table are ranged chairs of tarnished gilding, and a small settee with spindle-legs.
In her present phase of life, the squalor of these rooms is congenial to the marchesa. Hitherto reckless of expense, especially in law, she has all at once grown parsimonious to excess. As to the effect this change may produce on others, and whether this mode of life is in keeping with the stately palace she inhabits, the marchesa does not care in the least; it pleases her, that is enough. All her life she has been quite clear on two points—her belief in herself, and her belief in the name she bears.
The marchesa leans back on a high-backed chair and frowns. To frown is so habitual to her that the wrinkles on her forehead and between her eyebrows are prematurely deepened. She has a long, sallow face, a straight nose, keen black eyes, a high forehead, and a thin-lipped mouth. She is upright, and well made; and the folds of her plain black dress hang about her tall figure with a certain dignity. Her dark hair, now sprinkled with white, is fully dressed, the bands combed low on her forehead. She wears no ornament, except the golden cross of achanoinesse.
As she leans back on her high-backed chair she silently observes her niece, seated near the open window, knitting.
"If she had been my child!" was the marchesa's thought. "Why was I denied a child?" And she sighed.
The rays of the setting sun dance among the ripples of Enrica's blond hair, and light up the dazzling whiteness of her skin. Seen thus in profile, although her features are regular, and her expression full of sweetness, it is rather the promise than the perfection of actual beauty—the rose-bud—by-and-by to expand into the perfect flower.
There was a knock at the door, and a ruddy old face looked in. It is the Cavaliere Trenta, in his official blue coat and gold buttons, nankeen inexpressibles, a broad-brimmed white hat and a gold-headed cane in his hand. Whatever speck of dust might have had the audacity to venture to settle itself upon any part of the cavaliere's official blue coat, must at once have hidden its diminished head after peeping at the cavaliere's beaming countenance, so scrubbed and shiny, the white hair so symmetrically arranged upon his forehead in little curls—his whole appearance so neat and trim.
"Is it permitted to enter?" he asked, smiling blandly at the marchesa, as, leaning upon his stick, he made her a ceremonious bow.
"Yes, Cesarino, yes, you may enter," she replied, stiffly. "I cannot very well send you away now—but you deserve it."
"Why, most distinguished lady?" again asked Trenta, submissively, closing the door, and advancing to where she sat. He bent down his head and kissed her hand, then smiled at Enrica. "What have I done?"
"Done? You know you never came last night at all. I missed my game of whist. I do not sleep well without it."
"But, marchesa," pleaded Trenta, in the gentlest voice, "I am desolated, as you can conceive—desolated; but what could I do? Yesterday was the festival of the Holy Countenance, that solemn anniversary that brings prosperity to our dear city!" And the cavaliere cast up his mild blue eyes, and crossed himself upon the breast. "I was most of the day in the cathedral. Such a service! Better music than last year. In the evening I had promised to arrange the cotillon at Countess Orsetti's ball. As chamberlain to his late highness the Duke of Lucca, it is expected of me to organize every thing. One can leave nothing to that animal Baldassare—he has no head, no system; he dances well, but like a machine. The ball was magnificent—a great success," he continued, speaking rapidly, for he saw that a storm was gathering on the marchesa's brow, by the deepening of the wrinkles between her eyes. "A great success. I took a few turns myself with Teresa Ottolini—tra la la la la," and he swayed his head and shoulders to and fro as he hummed a waltz-tune.
"You!" exclaimed the marchesa, staring at him with a look of contempt—"you!"
"Yes. Why not? I am as young as ever, dear marchesa—eighty, the prime of life!"
"The festival of the Holy Countenance and the cotillon!" cried the marchesa, with great indignation. "Tell me nothing about the Orsetti ball. I won't listen to it. Good Heavens!" she continued, reddening, "I am thirty years younger than you are, but I left off dancing fifteen years ago. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Cesarino!"
Cesarino only smiled at her benignantly in reply. She had called him a fool so often! He seated himself beside her without speaking. He had come prepared to entertain her with an account of every detail of the ball; but seeing the temper she was in, he deemed it more prudent to be silent—to be silent specially about Count Nobili. The mention of his name would, he knew, put her in a fury, so, being a prudent man, and a courtier, he entirely dropped the subject of the ball. Yet Trenta was a privileged person. He never voluntarily contradicted the marchesa, but when occasion arose he always spoke his mind, fearless of consequences. As he and the marchesa disagreed on almost every possible subject, disputes often arose between them; but, thanks to Trenta's pliant temper and perfect good-breeding, they were always amicably settled.
"Count Marescotti and Baldassare are outside," continued Trenta, looking at her inquiringly, as the marchesa had not spoken. "They are waiting to know if the illustrious lady receives this evening, and if she will permit them to join her usual whist-party."
"Marescotti!—where may he come from?—the clouds, perhaps—or the last balloon?" asked the marchesa, looking up.
"From Rome; he arrived two days ago. He is no longer so erratic. Will you allow him to join us?"
"I shall certainly play my rubber if I am permitted," answered the marchesa, drawing herself up.
This was intended as a sarcastic reminder of the disregard shown to her by the cavaliere the evening before; but the sarcasm was quite thrown away upon Trenta; he was very simple and straightforward.
"The marchesa has only to command me," was his polite reply. "I wonder Marescotti and Baldassare are not here already," he added, looking toward the door. "I left them both in the street; they were to follow me up-stairs immediately."
"Ah!" said the marchesa, smiling sarcastically, "Count Marescotti is not to be trusted. He is a genius—he may be back on his way to Rome by this time."
"No, no," answered Trenta, rising and walking toward the door, which he opened and held in his hand, while he kept his eyes fixed on the staircase; "Marescotti is disgusted with Rome—with the Parliament, with the Government—with every thing. He abuses the municipality because a secret republican committee which he headed, in correspondence with Paris, has been discovered by the police and denounced. He had to escape in disguise."
"Well, well, I rejoice to hear it!" broke in the marchesa. "It is a good Government; let him find a better. Why has he come to Lucca? We want nosans-culotteshere."
"Marescotti declares," continued the cavaliere, "that even now Rome is still in bondage, and sunk in superstition. He calls it superstition. He would like to shut up all the churches. He believes in nothing but poetry and Red republicans. Any kind of Christian belief he calls superstition."
"Marescotti is quite right," said the marchesa, angrily; she was determined to contradict the cavaliere. "You are a bigot, Trenta—an old bigot. You believe every thing a priest tells you. A fine exhibition we had yesterday of what that comes to! The Holy Countenance! Do you think any educated person in Lucca believes in the Holy Countenance? I do not. It is only an excuse for idleness—for idleness, I say. Priests love idleness; they go into the Church because they are too idle to work." She raised her voice, and looked defiantly at Trenta, who stood before her the picture of meek endurance—holding the door-handle. "I hope I shall live to see all festivals abolished. Why didn't the Government do it altogether when they were about it?—no convents, no monks, no holidays, except on Sunday! Make the people work—work for their bread! We should have fewer taxes, and no beggars."
Trenta's benignant face had gradually assumed as severe an aspect as it was capable of bearing. He pointed to Enrica, of whom he had up to this time taken no notice beyond a friendly smile—the marchesa did not like Enrica to be noticed—now he pointed to her, and shook his head deprecatingly. Could he have read Enrica's thoughts, he need have feared no contamination to her from the marchesa; her thoughts were far away—she had not listened to a single word.
"Dio Santo!" he exclaimed at last, clasping his hands together and speaking low, so as not to be overheard by Enrica—"that I should live to hear a Guinigi talk so! Do you forget, marchesa, that it was under the banner of the blessed Holy Countenance (Vulturum di Lucca), miraculously cast on the shores of the Ligurian Sea, that your great ancestor Castruccio Castracani degli Antimelli overcame the Florentines at Alto Passo?"
"The banner didn't help him, nor St. Nicodemus either—I affirm that," answered she, angrily. Her temper was rising. "I will not be contradicted, cavaliere—don't attempt it. I never allow it. Even my husband never contradicted me—and he was a Guinigi. Is the city to go mad, eat, drink, and hang out old curtains because the priests bid them? Didyousee Nobili's house?" She asked this question so eagerly, she suddenly forgot her anger in the desire she felt to relate her injuries. "A Guinigi palace dressed out like a booth at a fair!—What a scandal! This comes of usury and banking. He will be a deputy soon. Will no one tell him he is a presumptuous young idiot?" she cried, with a burst of sudden rage, remembering the crowds that filled the streets, and the admiration and display excited. Then, turning round and looking Trenta full in the face, she added spitefully, "You may worship painted dolls, and kiss black crucifixes, if you like: I would not give them house-room."
"Mercy!" cried poor Trenta, putting his hands to his ears. "For pity's sake—the palacewillfall about your ears! Remember your niece is present."
And again he pointed to Enrica, whose head was bent down over her work.
"Ha! ha!" was all the reply vouchsafed by the marchesa, followed by a scornful laugh. "I shall say what I please in my own house. Poor Cesarino! You are very ignorant. I pity you!"
But Trenta was not there—he had rushed down-stairs as quickly as his old legs and his stick would carry him, and was out of hearing. At the mention of Nobili's name Enrica looked stealthily from under her long eyelashes, and turned very white. The sharp eyes of her aunt might have detected it had she been less engrossed by her passage of arms with the cavaliere.
"Ha! ha!" she repeated, grimly laughing to herself. "He is gone! Poor old soul! But I am going to have my rubber for all that.—Ring the bell, Enrica. He must come back. Trenta takes too much upon himself; he is always interfering."
As Enrica rose to obey her aunt, the sound of feet was heard in the anteroom. The marchesa made a sign to her to reseat herself, which she did in the same place as before, behind the thick cotton curtains of the Venetian casement.
Count Marescotti, the Red count (the marchesa had saidsans-culotte; Trenta had spoken of him as an atheist), was, unhappily, something of all this, but he was much more. He was a poet, an orator, and a patriot. Nature had gifted him with qualities for each vocation. He had a rich, melodious voice, with soft inflections; large dark eyes, that kindled with the impress of every emotion; finely-cut features, and a pale, bloodless face, that tells of a passionate nature. His manners were gracious, and he had a commanding presence. He was born to be a leader among men. Not only did he converse with ease and readiness on every conceivable topic—not only did strophe after strophe of musical verse flow from his lips with the facility of animprovisatore, but he possessed the supreme art of moving the multitude by an eloquence born of his own impassioned soul. While that suave voice rung in men's ears, it was impossible not to be convinced by his arguments. As a patriot, he worshiped Italy. His fervid imagination reveled in her natural beauties—art, music, history, poetry. He worshiped Italy, and he devoted his whole life to what he conceived to be her good.
Marescotti was no atheist; he was a religious reformer, sincerely and profoundly pious, and conscientious to the point of honor. Indeed, his conscience was so sensitive, that he had been known to confess two and three times on the same day. The cavaliere called him an atheist because he was a believer in Savonarola, and because he positively refused to bind himself to any priestly dogma, or special form of worship whatever. But he had never renounced the creed of his ancestors. The precepts of Savonarola did, indeed, afford him infinite consolation; they were to him avia mediabetween Protestant latitude and dogmatic belief.
The republican simplicity, stern morals, and sweeping reforms both in Church and state preached by Savonarola (reforms, indeed, as radical as were consistent with Catholicism), were the objects of his special reverence. Savonarola had died at the stake for practising and for teaching them; Marescotti declared, with characteristic enthusiasm, that he was ready to do likewise. Wrong or right, he believed that, if Savonarola had lived in the nineteenth century, he would have acted as he himself had done. In the same manner, although an avowed republican, he was nosans-culotte.His strong sense of personal independence and of freedom, political and religious, caused him to revolt against what he conceived tyranny or coercion of any kind. Even constitutional monarchy was not sufficiently free for him. A king and a court, the royal prerogative of ministers, patent places, pensions, favors, the unacknowledged influence of a reigning house—represented to his mind a modified system of tyranny—therefore of corruption. Constant appeals to the sovereign people, a form of government where the few yielded to the many, and the rich divided their riches voluntarily with the poor—was in theory what he advocated.
Yet with these lofty views, these grand aspirations, with unbounded faith, and unbounded energy and generosity, Marescotti achieved nothing. He wanted the power of concentration, of bringing his energies to bear on any one particular object. His mind was like an old cabinet, crowded with artistic rubbish—gems and rarities, jewels of price and pearls of the purest water, hidden among faded flowers; old letters, locks of hair, daggers, tinsel reliquaries, crosses, and modern grimcracks—all that was incongruous, piled together pell-mell in hopeless confusion.
His countrymen, singularly timid and conventional, and always unwilling to admit new ideas upon any subject unless imperatively forced upon them, did not understand him. They did not appreciate either his originality or the real strength of his character. He differed from them and their mediaeval usages—therefore he must be wrong. He was called eccentric by his friends, a lunatic by his enemies. He was neither. But he lived much alone; he had dreamed rather than reflected, and he had planned instead of acting.
"Count Marescotti," said the marchesa, holding out her hand, "I salute you.—Baldassare, you are welcome."
The intonation of her voice, the change in her manner, gave the exact degree of consideration proper to accord to the head of an ancient Roman family, and the dandy son of a Lucca chemist. And, lest it should be thought strange that the Marchesa Guinigi should admit Baldassare at all to her presence, I must explain that Baldassare was aprotégé, almost a double, of the cavaliere, who insisted upon taking him wherever he went. If you received the cavaliere, you must, perforce, receive Baldassare also. No one could explain why this was so. They were continually quarreling, yet they were always together. Their intimacy had been the subject of many jokes and some gossip; but the character of the cavaliere was immaculate, and Baldassare's mother (now dead) had never lived at Lucca. Trenta, when spoken to on the subject of his partiality, said he was "educating him" to fill his place as master of the ceremonies in Lucchese society. Except when specially bullied by the cavaliere—who greatly enjoyed tormenting him in public—Baldassare was inoffensive and useful.
Now he pressed forward to the front.
"Signora Marchesa," he said, eagerly, "allow me to make my excuses to you."
The marchesa turned a surprised and distant gaze upon him; but Baldassare was not to be discouraged. He had that tough skin of true vulgarity which is impervious to any thing but downright hard blows.
"Allow me to make my excuses," he continued. "The cavaliere here has been scolding me all the way up-stairs for not bringing Count Marescotti sooner to you. I could not."
Marescotti bowed an acquiescence.
"While we were standing in the street, waiting to know if the noble lady received, an old beggar, known in Lucca as the Hermit of Pizzorna, come down from the mountains for the festival, passed by."
"Yes, it was a providence," broke in the count—"a real hermit, not one of those fat friars, with shaven crowns, we have in Rome, but a genuine recluse, a man whose life is one long act of practical piety."
When Marescotti had entered, he seemed only the calm, high-bred gentleman; now, as he spoke, his eye sparkled, and his pale cheeks flushed.
"Yes, I addressed the hermit," he continued, and he raised his fine head and crossed his hands on his breast as if he were still before him. "I kissed his bare feet, road-stained with errands of charity. 'My father,' I said to him, 'bless me'—"
"Not only so," interrupted Baldassare, "but, would you believe it, madame, the count cast himself down on the dusty street to receive his blessing!"
"And why not?" asked the count, looking at him severely. "It came to me like a voice from heaven. The hermit is a holy man. Would I were like him! I have heard of him for thirty years past. Winter after winter, among those savage mountains, in roaring winds, in sweeping storms, in frost and snow, and water-floods, he has assisted hundreds, who, but for him, must infallibly have perished. What courage! what devotion! It is a poem." Marescotti spoke hurriedly and in a low voice. "Yes, I craved his blessing. I kissed his hands, his feet. I would have kissed the ground on which he stood." As he proceeded, Marescotti grew more and more abstracted. All that he described was passing like a vision before him. "Those venerable hands—yes, I kissed them."
"How much money did you leave in them, count?" asked the marchesa, with a sneer.
"Great is the mercy of God!" ejaculated the count, earnestly, not heeding her. "Sinner as I am, the touch of those hands—that blessing—purified me. I feel it."
"Incredible! Well," cried Baldassare, "the price of that blessing will keep the good man in bread and meat for a year. Let the old beggar go to the devil, count, his own way. He must soon appear there, anyhow. A good-for-nothing old cheat! His blessing, indeed! I can get you a dozen begging friars who will bless you all day for a few farthings."
The count's brow darkened.
"Baldassare," said he, very gravely, "you are young, and, like your age, inconsiderate. I request that, in my presence, you speak with becoming respect of this holy man."
"Per Bacco!" exclaimed the cavaliere, advancing from where he had been standing behind the marchesa's chair, and patting Baldassare patronizingly on the shoulder, "I never heard you talk so much before at one time, Baldassare. Now, you had better have held your tongue, and listened to Count Marescotti. Leading the cotillon last night has turned your head. Take my advice, however—an old man's advice—stick to your dancing. You understand that. Every man has hisforte—yours is the ballroom."
Baldassare smiled complaisantly at this allusion to the swiftness of his heels.
"Out of the ballroom," continued Trenta, eying him with quiet scorn, "I advise caution—great caution. Out of the ballroom you are capable of any imbecility."
"Cavaliere!" cried Baldassare, turning very red and looking at him reproachfully.
"You have deserved this reproof, young man," said the marchesa, harshly. "Learn your place in addressing the Count Marescotti."
That the son of a shopkeeper should presume to dispute in her presence with a Roman noble, was a thing so unsuitable that, even in her own house, she must put it down authoritatively. She had never liked Baldassare—never wanted to receive him, now she resolved never to see him again; but, as she feared that Trenta would continue to bring him, under pretext of making up her whist-table, she did not say so.
The medical Adonis was forced to swallow his rage, but his cheeks tingled. He dared not quarrel either with the marchesa, Trenta, or the count, by whose joint support alone he could hope to plant himself firmly in the realms of Lucchese fashionable life—a life which he felt was his element. Utterly disconcerted, however, he turned down his eyes, and stared at his boots, which were highly glazed, then glanced up at his own face (as faultless and impassive as a Greek mask) in a mirror opposite, hastily arranged his hair, and finally collapsed into silence and a corner.
At this moment Count Marescotti became suddenly aware of Enrica's presence. She was, as I have said, sitting in the same place by the casement, concealed by the curtain, her head bent down over her knitting. She had only looked up once when Nobili's name had been mentioned. No one had noticed her. It was not the usage of Casa Guinigi to notice Enrica. Enrica was not the marchesa's daughter; therefore, except in marriage, she was not entitled to enjoy the honors of the house. She was never permitted to take part in conversation.
Marescotti, who had not seen her since she was fourteen, now bounded across the room to where she sat, overshadowed by the curtain, bowed to her formally, then touched the tips of her fingers with his lips.
Enrica raised her eyes. And what eyes they were!—large, melancholy, brooding, of no certain color, changing as she spoke, as the summer sky changes the color of the sea. They were more gray than blue, yet they were blue, with long, dark eyelashes that swept upon her cheeks. As she looked up and smiled, there was an expression of the most perfect innocence in her face. It was like a flower that opens its bosom frankly to the sun.
Marescotti's artistic nature was deeply stirred. He gazed at her in silence for some minutes; he was seeking in his own mind in what type of womanhood he should place her. Suddenly an idea struck him.—She was the living image of the young Madonna—the young Madonna before the visit of the archangel—pale, meditative, pathetic, but with no shadow of the future upon her face. Marescotti was so engrossed by this idea that he remained motionless before her. Each one present observed his emotion, the marchesa specially; she frowned her disapproval.
Trenta laughed quietly to himself, then stroked his well-shaved chin.
"Signorina," said the count, at length breaking silence, "permit me to offer my excuses for not having sooner perceived you. Will you forgive me?"
"Mio Dio!" muttered the marchesa to herself, "he will turn the child's head with his fine phrases."
"I have nothing to forgive, count," answered Enrica simply. She spoke low. Her voice matched the expression of her face; there was a natural tone of plaintiveness in it.
"When I last saw you," continued the count, standing as if spellbound before her, "you were only a child. Now," and his kindling eyes riveted themselves upon her, "you are a woman. Like the magic rose that was the guerdon of the Troubadours, you have passed in an hour from leaf to bud, from bud to fairest flower. You were, of course, at the Orsetti ball last night?" He asked this question, trying to rouse himself. "What ball in Lucca would be complete without you?"
"I was not there," answered Enrica, blushing deeply and glancing timidly at the marchesa, who, with a scowl on her face, was fanning herself violently.
"Not there!" ejaculated Marescotti, with wonder.—"Why, marchesa, is it not barbarous to shut up your beautiful niece? Is it because you deem her too precious to be gazed upon? If so, you are right."
And again his eyes, full of ardent admiration, were bent on Enrica.
Enrica dropped her head to hide her confusion, and resumed her knitting.
It was a golden sunset. The sun was sinking behind the delicate arcades of the Moorish garden, and spreading broad patches of rosy light upon the marble. The shrubs, with their bright flowers, were set against a tawny orange sky. The air was full of light—the last gleams of parting day. The splash of the fountain upon the lion's heads was heard in the silence, the heavy perfume of the magnolia-flowers stole in wafts through the sculptured casements, creeping upward in the soft evening air.
Still, motionless before Enrica, Marescotti was rapidly falling into a poetic rapture. The marchesa broke the awkward silence.
"Enrica is a child," she said, dryly. "She knows nothing about balls. She has never been to one. Pray do not put such ideas into her head, count," she added, looking at him angrily.
"But, marchesa, your niece is no child—she is a lovely woman," insisted the count, his eyes still riveted upon her. The marchesa did not consider it necessary to answer him.
Meanwhile the cavaliere, who had returned to his seat near her, had watched the moment when no one was looking that way, had given her a significant glance, and placed his finger warningly upon his lip.
Not understanding what he meant by this action, the marchesa was at first inclined to resent it as a liberty, and to rebuke him; but she thought better of it, and only glanced at him haughtily.
It was not the first time she had found it to her advantage to accept Trenta's hints. Trenta was a man of the world, and he had his eyes open. What he meant, however, she could not even guess.
Meanwhile the count had drawn a chair beside Enrica.
"Yes, yes, the Orsetti ball," he said, absently, passing his hand through the masses of black curls that rested upon his forehead.
He was following out, in his own mind, the notion of addressing an ode to her in the character of the young Madonna—the uninstructed Madonna—without that look of pensive suffering painters put into her eyes.
The Madonna figured prominently in Marescotti's creed, spite of his belief in the stern precepts of Savonarola—the plastic creed of an artist, made up of heavenly eyes, ravishing forms, melodious sounds, rich color, sweeping rhythms, moonlight, and violent emotions.
"I was not there myself—no, or I should have been aware you had not honored the Countess Orsetti with your presence. But in the morning—that glorious mass in the old cathedral—you were there?"
Enrica answered that she had not left the house all day, at which the count raised his eyebrows in astonishment.
"That mass," he continued, "in celebration of a local miracle (respectable from its antiquity), has haunted me ever since. The gloomy splendor of the venerable cathedral overwhelmed me; the happy faces that met me on every side, the spontaneous rejoicing of the whole population, touched me deeply. I longed to make them free. They deserve freedom; they shall have it!" A dark fire glistened in his eye. "I have been lost in day-dreams ever since; I must give them utterance." And he gazed steadfastly at Enrica.—"I have not left my room, marchesa, ever since"—at last Marescotti left Enrica's side, and approached the marchesa—"until an hour ago, when Baldassare"—and the count bowed to Adonis, still seated sulky in a corner—"came and carried me off in the hope that you would permit me to join your rubber. Had I known"—he added, in a lower voice, bending his head toward Enrica. Then he stopped, suddenly aware that every one was listening to all he said (a fact which he had been far too much absorbed to notice previously), colored, and retreated to the sofa with the spindle-legs.
"Per Bacco!" whispered the cavaliere to the marchesa, sitting near her on the other side; "I am convinced poor Marescotti has never touched a morsel of food since that mass—I am certain of it. He always lives upon a poetical diet, poor devil!—rose-leaves and the beauties of Nature, with a warm dish now and then in the way of aragoûtof conspiracy. God help him! he's a greater lunatic than ever." This was spoken aside into the marchesa's ear. "If you have a soul of pity, marchesa, order him a chicken before we begin playing, or he will faint upon the floor." The marchesa smiled.
"I don't like impressionable people at all," she responded, in the same tone of voice. "In my opinion, feelings should be concealed, not exhibited." And she sighed, recalling her own silent vigils on the floor beneath, unknown to all save the cavaliere.
"But—a thousand pardons!" cried Marescotti, gradually waking up to some social energy, "I have been talking only of myself! Talking of myself in your presence, ladies!—What can we do to amuse your niece, marchesa? Lucca is horribly dull. If she is to go neither to festivals nor to balls, it will not be possible for her to exist here."
"It will be quite possible," answered the marchesa, greatly displeased at the turn the conversation was taking. "Quite possible, if I choose it. Enrica will exist where I please. You forget she has lived here for seventeen years. You see she has not died of it. She stays at home by my order, count."
Enrica cast a pleading look at her aunt, as if to say, "Can I help all this?" As for Count Marescotti, he was far too much engrossed with his own thoughts to be aware that he was treading on delicate ground.
"But, marchesa," he urged, "you can't really keep your niece any longer shut up like the fairy princess in the tower. Let me be permitted to act the part of the fairy prince and liberate her."
Again he had turned, and again his glowing eyes fixed themselves on Enrica, who had withdrawn as much as possible behind the curtains. Her cheeks were dyed with blushes. She shrank from the count's too ardent glances, as though those glances were an involuntary treason to Nobili.
"Something must be done," muttered the count, meditating.
"Will you trust your niece with Cavaliere Trenta, and permit me to accompany them on some little excursion in the city, to make up for the loss of the cathedral and the ball?"
The marchesa, who found the count decidedly troublesome, not to say impertinent, had opened her lips to give an unqualified negative, but another glance from Trenta checked her.
"An excellent idea," put in the cavaliere, before she could speak. "Withme, marchesa—withme" he added, looking at her deprecatingly.
Trenta loved Enrica better than any thing in the world, but carefully concealed it, the better to serve her with her aunt.
"As for me, I am ready for any thing." And, to show his agility, he rose, and, with the help of his stick, made aglissadeon the floor.
Baldassare laughed out loud from the corner. It gratified his wounded vanity to see his elder ridiculous.
Marescotti, greatly alarmed, started forward and offered his arm, in order to lead the cavaliere back to his seat, but Trenta indignantly refused his assistance. The marchesa shook her head.
"Calm yourself," she said, looking at him compassionately. "Calm yourself, Cesarino, I should not like you to have a fit in my house."
"Fit!—chè chè?" cried Trenta, angrily. "Not while I am in the presence of the young and fair," he added, recovering himself. "It is that which has kept me alive all this time. No, marchesa, I refuse to sit down again. I refuse to sit down, or to take a hand at your rubber, until something is settled."
This was addressed to the marchesa, who had caught him by the tails of his immaculate blue coat and forced him into a seat beside her.
"Vive la bagatelle! Where shall we go? You cannot refuse the count," he added, giving the marchesa a meaning look. "What shall we do? Let us all propose something. Let me see. I propose to improve Enrica's mind. She is young—the young have need of improvement. I propose to take her to the church of San Frediano and to show her the ancient fresco representing the discovery of the Holy Countenance; also the Trenta chapel, containing the tombs of my family. I will try to explain to her their names and history.—What do you say to this, my child?"
And the cavaliere turned to Enrica, who, little accustomed to be noticed at all, much less to occupy the whole conversation, looked supplicatingly at her aunt. She would gladly have run out of the room if she had dared.
"No, no," exclaimed the irrepressible Baldassare, from the corner. "Never! What a ghastly idea! Tombs and a mouldy old church! You may find satisfaction, Signore Trenta, in the contemplation of your tomb, but the signorina is not eighty, nor am I, nor is the count. I propose that after being shut up so many years the Guinigi Palace be thrown open, and a ball given on the first floor in honor of the signorina. There should be a band from Florence and presents from Paris for the cotillon. What do you say tothat, Signora Marchesa?" asked the misguided young man, with unconscious self-satisfaction.
If a mine had sprung under the marchesa's feet, she could not have been more horrified. What she would have said to Baldassare is difficult to guess, but fortunately for him, while she was struggling for words in which she could suitably express her sense of his presumption, Trenta, seeing what was coming, was beforehand.
"Be silent, Baldassare," he exclaimed, "or, per Dio, I will never bring you here again."
Before Baldassare could offer his apologies, the count burst in—
"I propose that we shall show the signorina something that will amuse her." He thought for a moment. "Have you ever ascended the old tower of this palace?" he asked.
Enrica shook her head.
"Then I propose the Guinigi Tower—the stairs are rather rickety, but they are not unsafe. I was there the last time I visited Lucca. The view over the Apennines is superb. Will you trust yourself to us, signorina?"
Enrica raised her head and looked at him hesitatingly, glanced at her aunt, then looked at him again. Until the marchesa had spoken she dared not reply. She longed to go. If she ascended the tower, might she not see Nobili? She had not set her eyes on him for a whole week.
Marescotti saw her hesitation, but he misunderstood the cause. He returned her look with an ardent glance. Where was the young Madonna leading him? He did not stop to inquire, but surrendered himself to the enchantment of her presence.
"Is my proposal accepted?" Count Marescotti inquired, anxiously turning toward the marchesa, who sat listening to them with a deeply-offended air.
"And mine too?" put in the cavaliere. "Both can be combined. I should so much like to show Enrica the tombs of the Trenta. We have been a famous family in our time. Do not refuse us, marchesa."
All this was entirely out of the habits of Casa Guinigi. Hitherto Enrica had been kept in absolute subjection. If she were present no one spoke to her, or noticed her. Now all this was to be changed, because Count Marescotti had come up from Rome. Enrica was not only to be gazed at and flattered, but to engross attention.
The marchesa showed evident tokens of serious displeasure. Had Count Marescotti not been present, she would assuredly have expressed this displeasure in very strong language. In all matters connected with her niece, with her household, and with the management of her own affairs, she could not tolerate remark, much less interference. Every kind of interference was offensive to her. She believed in herself, as I have said, blindly: never, up to that time, had that belief been shaken. All this discussion was, to her mind, worse than interference—it was absolute revolution. She inwardly resolved to shut up her house and go into the country, rather than submit to it. She eyed the count, who stood waiting for an answer, as if he were an enemy, and scowled at the excellent Trenta.
Enrica, too, had fixed her eyes upon her beseechingly; Enrica evidently wanted to go. The marchesa had already opened her lips to give an abrupt refusal, when she felt a warning hand laid upon her arm. Again she was shaken in her purpose of refusal. She rose, and approached the card-table.
"I shall take time to consider," she replied to the inquiring eyes awaiting her reply.
The marchesa took up the pack of cards and examined the markers. She was debating with herself what Trenta could possibly mean by his extraordinary conduct,twicerepeated.
"You had better retire now," she said to Enrica, with an expression of hostility her niece knew too well. "You have listened to quite enough folly for one night. Men are flatterers."
"Not I! not I!" cried Marescotti. "I never say any thing but what I mean."
And he flew toward the door in order to open it before Enrica could reach it.
"All good angels guard you!" he whispered, with a tender voice, into her ear, as, greatly confused, she passed by him, into the anteroom. "May you find all men as true as I! Per Dio! she is the living image of the young Madonna!" he added, half aloud, gazing after her. "Countenance, manner, air—it is perfect!"
A match was now produced out of Trenta's pocket. The candles were lighted, and the casements closed. The party then sat down to whist.
The marchesa was always specially irritable when at cards. The previous conversation had not improved her temper. Moreover, the count was her partner, and a worse one could hardly be conceived. Twice he did not even take up the cards dealt to him, but sat immovable, staring at the print of the Empress Eugénie in the Spanish dress on the green wall opposite. Called to order peremptorily by the marchesa, he took up his cards, shuffled them, then laid them down again on the table, his eyes wandering off to the chair hitherto occupied by Enrica.
This was intolerable. The marchesa showed him that she thought so. He apologized. He did take up his cards, and for a few deals attended to the game. Again becoming abstracted, he forgot what were trumps, losing thereby several tricks. Finally, he revoked. Both the marchesa and the cavaliere rebuked him very sharply. Again he apologized, tried to collect his thoughts, but still played abominably.
Meanwhile, Trenta and Baldassare kept up a perpetual wrangle. The cavaliere was cool, sardonic, smiling, and provoking—Baldassare hot and flushed with a concentration of rage he dared not express. The cavaliere, thanks to his court education, was an admirable whist-player. His frequent observations to his young friend were excellent as instruction, but were conveyed in somewhat contemptuous language. Baldassare, having been told by the cavaliere that playing a good hand at whist was as necessary to his future social success as dancing, was much chagrined.
Poor Baldassare!—his life was a continual conflict—a sacrifice to his love of fine company. It might be doubted if he would not have been infinitely happier in the atmosphere of the paternal establishment, weighing out drugs, in shabby clothes, behind the counter, than he was now, snubbed and affronted, and barely tolerated.
After this the marchesa and Trenta became partners; but matters did not improve. A violent altercation ensued as to who led a certain crucial card, which decided the game. Once seated at the whist-table, the cavaliere was a real autocrat.Therehe did not affect even to submit to the marchesa. Now, provoked beyond endurance, he plainly told her "she never had played a good game, and, what was more, that she never would—she was too impetuous." Upon hearing this the marchesa threw down her cards in a rage, and rose from the table. Trenta rose also. With an imperturbable countenance he offered her his arm, to lead her back to her seat.
The marchesa, extremely irate at what he had said, pushed him rudely to one side and reseated herself.
Baldassare and Marescotti rose also. The count, having continued persistently absent up to the last, was utterly unconscious of the little fracas that had taken place between the marchesa and the cavaliere, and the consequent sudden conclusion of the game. He had seen her rise, and it was a great relief to him. He had been debating in his own mind whether he should adopt the Dante rhyme for his ode to the young Madonna, or make it in strophes. He inclined to the latter treatment as more picturesque, and therefore more suitable to the subject.
"May I," said he, suddenly roused to what was passing about him, and advancing with a gracious smile upon his mobile face, lit up by the pleasant musings of the whist-table—pleasant to him, but assuredly not pleasant to his partner—"may I hope, marchesa, that you will acquiesce in our little plan for to-morrow?"
The marchesa had come by this time to look on the count as a bore, of whom she was anxious to rid herself. She was so anxious, indeed, to rid herself of him that she actually assented.
"My niece, Signore Conte," she said, stiffly, "shall be ready with her gouvernante and the Cavaliere Trenta, at eleven o'clock to-morrow. Now—good-night!"
Marescotti took the hint, bowed, and departed arm-in-arm withBaldassare.
When the count and Baldassare had left the room, Cavaliere Trenta made no motion to follow them. On the contrary, he leaned back in the chair on which he was seated, and nursed his leg with the nankeen trouser meditatively. The expression of his face showed that his thoughts were busy with some project he desired to communicate. Until he had done so in his own way, and at his own time, he would continue to sit where he was. It was this imperturbable self-possession and good-humor combined which gave him so much influence over the irascible marchesa. They were as iron to fire, only the iron was never heated.
The marchesa, deeply resenting his remarks upon her whist playing, tapped her foot impatiently on the floor, fanned herself, and glowered at him out of the darkness which the single pair of candles did not dispel. As he still made no motion to go, she took out her watch, looked at it, and, with an exclamation of surprise, rose. Quite useless. Trenta did not stir.
"Marchesa," he said at last, abruptly, raising his head and looking at her, "do me the favor to sit down. Spare me a few moments before you retire."
"I want to go to bed," she answered, rudely. "It is already past my usual hour."
"Marchesa—one moment. I permitted myself the liberty of an old friend just now—to check your speech to Count Marescotti."
"Yes," said she, drawing up her long throat, and throwing back her head, an action habitual to her when displeased, "you did so. I did not understand it. We have been acquainted quite long enough for you to know I do not like interference."
"Pardon me, noble lady"—(Trenta spoke very meekly—to soothe her now was absolutely necessary)—"pardon me, for the sake of my good intentions."
"And pray whatwereyour good intentions, cavaliere?" she asked, in a mocking tone, reseating herself. Her curiosity was rapidly getting the better of her resentment.
As she asked the question, the cavaliere left off nursing his leg with the nankeen trouser, rose, drew his chair closer to hers, then sat down again. The light from the single pair of candles was very dim, and scarcely extended beyond the card-table. Both their heads were therefore in shadow, but the marchesa's eyes gleamed nevertheless, as she waited for Trenta's explanation.
"Did you observe nothing this evening, my friend?" he asked—"nothing?" His manner was unusually excited.
"No," she answered, thoughtfully. She had been so exclusively occupied with the slights put upon herself that every thing else had escaped her. "I observed nothing except the impertinence of Count Marescotti, and the audacity—the—"
"Stop, marchesa," interrupted Trenta, holding up his hand. "We will talk of all that another time. If Count Marescotti and Baldassare have offended you, you can decline to receive them. You observed nothing, you say? I did." He leaned forward, and spoke with emphasis—"Marescotti is in love with Enrica."
The marchesa started violently and raised herself bolt upright.
"The Red count in love with a child like Enrica!"
"Only a child in your eyes, Signora Marchesa," rejoined Trenta, warmly. (He had warmed with his own convictions, his benevolent heart was deeply interested in Enrica. He had known her since she had first come to Casa Guinigi, a baby; from his soul he pitied her.) "In the eyes of the world Enrica is not only a woman, but promises to be a very lovely one. She is seventeen years old, and marriageable. Young ladies of her name and position must have fortunes, or they do not marry well. If they do, it is a chance—quite a chance. Under these circumstances, it would be cruel to deprive her of so suitable an alliance as Count Marescotti. Now, allow me to ask you, seriously, how would this marriage suit you?"
"Not at all," replied the marchesa, curtly. "The count is a republican. I hate republicans. The Guinigi have always been Ghibelline, and loyal. I dislike him, too, personally. I was about to desire you never to bring him here again. Contact with low people has spoiled him. His manners are detestable."
"But, marchesa, che vuole?" Trenta shrugged his shoulders. "He belongs to one of the oldest families in Rome; he is well off, handsome (he reminds me of your ancestor, Castruccio Castracani); a wife might improve him." The marchesa shook her head.
"He like the great Castruccio!—I do not see it."
"Permit me," resumed Trenta, "without entering into details which, as a friend, you have confided to me, I must remind you that your affairs are seriously embarrassed."
The marchesa winced; she guessed what was coming. She knew that she could not deny it.
"You are embarrassed by lawsuits. Unfortunately, all have gone against you."
"I fought for the ancient privileges of the Guinigi!" burst out the marchesa, imperiously. "I would do it again."
"I do not in the least doubt you would do it again, exalted lady," responded Trenta, with a quiet smile. "Indeed, I feel assured of it. I merely state the fact. You have sacrificed large sums of money. You have lost every suit. The costs have been enormous. Your income is greatly reduced. Enrica is therefore portionless."
"No, no, not altogether." The marchesa moved nervously in her chair, carefully avoiding meeting Trenta's steely blue eyes. "I have saved money, Cesarino—I have indeed," she repeated. The marchesa was becoming quite affable. "I cannot touch the heirlooms. But Enrica will have a small portion."
"Well, well," replied Trenta. "But it is impossible you can have saved much since the termination of that last long suit with the chapter about your right to the second bench in the nave of the cathedral, the bench awarded to Count Nobili when he bought the palace. The expense was too great, and the trial too recent."
She made no reply.
"Then there was that other affair with the municipality about the right of flying the flag from the Guinigi Tower. I do not mention small affairs, such as disputes with your late steward at Corellia, trials at Barga, nor litigation here at Lucca on a small scale. My dear marchesa, you have found the law an expensive pastime." The cavaliere's round eyes twinkled as he said this. "Enrica is therefore virtually portionless. The choice lies between a husband who will wed her for herself, or a convent. If I understand your views, a convent would not suit you. Besides, you would not surely voluntarily condemn a girl, without vocation, and brought up beside you, to the seclusion of a convent?"
"But Enrica is a child—I tell you she is too young to think about marriage, cavaliere."
The marchesa spoke with anger. She would stave off as long as possible the principal question—that of marriage. Sudden proposals, too, emanating from others, always nettled her; it narrowed her prerogative.
"Besides," objected the marchesa, still fencing with the real question, "who can answer for Count Marescotti? He is so capricious! Supposing he likes Enrica to-day, he may change before to-morrow. Do you really think he can care enough about Enrica to marry her? Her name would be nothing to him."
"I think he does care for her," replied Trenta, reflectively; "but that can be ascertained. Enrica is a fit consort for a far greater man than Count Marescotti. Not that he, as you say, would care about her name. Remember, she will be your heiress—that is something."
"Yes, yes, my heiress," answered the marchesa, vaguely; for the dreadful question rose up in her mind, "What would Enrica have to inherit?"
That very day she had received a most insolent letter from a creditor. Under the influence of the painful thoughts, she turned her head aside and said nothing. One of her hands was raised over her eyes to shade them from the candles; the other rested on her dark dress.
If a marriage were really in question, what could be more serious? Was not Enrica's marriage to raise up heirs to the Guinigi—heirs to inherit the palace and the heirlooms? If—the marchesa banished the thought, but it would return, and haunt her like a spectre—if not the palace, then at least the name—the historic name, revered throughout Italy? Nothing could deprive Enrica of the name—that name was in itself a dower. That Enrica should possess both name and palace, with a husband of her—the marchesa's—own choosing, had been her dream, but it had been a far-off dream—a dream to be realized in the course of years.
Taken thus aback, the proposal made by Trenta appeared to her hurried and premature—totally wanting in the dignified and well-considered action that should mark the conduct of the great. Besides, if an immediate marriage were arranged between Count Marescotti and Enrica, only a part of her plan could be realized. Enrica was, indeed, now almost portionless; there would be no time to pile up those gold-pieces, or to swell those rustling sheaves of notes that she had—in imagination—accumulated.
"Portionless!" the marchesa repeated to herself, half aloud. "What a humiliation!—my own niece!"
It will be observed that all this time the marchesa had never considered what Enrica's feeling might be. She was to obey her—that was all.
But in this the marchesa was not to blame. She undoubtedly carried her idea of Enrica's subserviency too far; but custom was on her side. Marriages among persons of high rank are "arranged" in Italy—arranged by families or by priests, acting as go-betweens. The lady leaves the convent, and her marriage is arranged. She is unconscious that she has a heart—she only discovers that unruly member afterward. To love a husband is unnecessary; there are so many "golden youths" to choose from. And the husband has his pastime too. Cosi fan tutti! It is a round game!
All this time the cavaliere had never taken his eyes off his friend. To a certain extent he understood what was passing in her mind. A portionless niece would reveal her poverty.
"A good marriage is a good thing," he suggested, as a safe general remark, after having waited in vain for some response.
"In all I do," the marchesa answered, loftily, "I must first consider what is due to the dignity of my position." Trenta bowed.
"Decidedly, marchesa; that is your duty. But what then?"
"No feelingwhateverbut that will influence menow, or hereafter—nothing." She dwelt upon the last word defiantly, as the final expression of her mind. Spite of this defiance, there was, however, a certain hesitation in her manner which did not escape the cavaliere. As she spoke, she looked hard at him, and touched his arm to arouse his attention.
Trenta, who knew her so well, perfectly interpreted her meaning. His ruddy cheeks flushed crimson; his kindly eyes kindled; he felt sure that his advice would be accepted. She was yielding, but he must be most cautious not to let his satisfaction appear. So strangely contradictory was the marchesa that, although nothing could possibly be more advantageous to her own schemes than this marriage, she might, if indiscreetly pressed, veer round, and, in spite of her interest, refuse to listen to another syllable on the subject.
All this kept the cavaliere silent. Receiving no answer, she looked suspiciously at him, then grasped his arm tightly.
"And you, cavaliere—how long have you been so deeply interested in Enrica? What is she to you? Her future can only signify to you as far as it affects myself."
She waited for a reply. What was the cavaliere to answer? He lovedEnrica dearly, but he dared not say so, lest he should offend themarchesa. He feared that if he spoke he should assuredly say too much.Well as he knew her, the marchesa's egotism horrified him.
"Poor Enrica!" he muttered, involuntarily, half aloud.
The marchesa caught at the name.
"Enrica?—yes. From the time of my husband's death I have sacrificed my life to the duties imposed on me by my position. So must Enrica. No personal feeling for her shall bias me in the least."
Her eyes were fixed on those of Trenta. She paused again, and passed her white hand slowly one over the other. The cavaliere looked down; he durst not meet her glance, lest she should read his thoughts. Thinking of Enrica at that moment, he absolutely hated her!
"What would you advise me to do?" she asked, at last. Her voice fell as she put the question.
Trenta had been waiting for this direct appeal. Now his tongue was unloosed.
"I will tell you, Signora Marchesa, plainly what I would advise you to do," was his answer. "Let Enrica marry Marescotti. Put the whole matter into my hands, if you have sufficient confidence in me."
"Remember, Trenta, the humiliation!"
"What humiliation?" asked the cavaliere, with surprise.