'"Whence did our bird-soft baby come?
How learned to prattle of this for home?
Some sleepy nurse-angel let her stray,
And she found herself in the world one day.
She heard nurse calling, and further fled:
She hid herself in our cabbage bed.
There we came on her fast asleep,
What could we do but take and keep,
Carry her in and up the stair?
She would have died of cold out there.
She woke at once in a little fright;
But Love beckoned her from the light.
Lure we had lit, for dear love fain;
She had seen it shine through the window pane.
Lure we had kindled of flame and bliss,
To catch such a little ghost-moth as this.
Ah, me! it shrivelled her pretty wing.
Here she must stay, poor thing, poor thing!"'
She ended: 'Faith, St. Charming's lips make that daintiest setting to
his fancies, that I could have kissed 'em while he improved his song
with a homily' (she mimicked again the boy's manner, comically
emphasised). '"Why," saith he, "would you grudge yourself that poignant
privilege of your sex? would ye share the agony and halve the gain?
What gift so careless in all the world makes such sweet possession?
Furs, gowns, and trinkets pall; perishable things grow less by use; the
diamond suffers by its larger peer. Only the gift of love, the wee
babe, takes new delight of time; renews woman's best through herself; is
a perpetual novelty, spring all the year round, flowers fresh burgeoning
through faded blooms. To be sole warden of the quickening soul ye
bore--you, you! to see the lamb-like heaven of its eyes cuddling to your
bosom's fold--all thine, save the spent heat that cast it! O, rather be
the mould than the turbulent metal it shapes! Go to, and thank God for
labours yielding such reward. Go to, and be the mother of saints."
Whereat I curtsied, and "Thank you, sir," says I, "for the offer, but my
bed's already laid for me in Rome," and then----'
What more she might have quoted or invented none might say, for at the
moment a wild figure burst into the chamber, and ran to its mistress,
and entreated her with lips and hands.
'Give me thy gage--quick! There is one starves in the "Hermit's Cell,"
and they will not let me pass to him without. Thou art the Duke, thou
art the Duke now. Give it me, in mercy, and avert God's vengeance from
this wicked house!'
Bona had arisen, pale as death, pity and anguish pleading in her eyes.
'Alas! What say'st thou? Thou, not I, art the Duke.'
'Give it me,' demanded Bembo feverishly. 'Nay, quibble not, while he
gasps out his agony--a monk--hear'st thou? A monk!'
She temporised a moment in her pain.
'There are black sheep in those flocks.'
'God forgive thee!'
'Alas! _thou_ wilt not. Indeed I have no talisman will open doors that
my lord has shut.'
Beatrice, intent, with veiled eyes, from her place, bestirred herself
with an indolent smile.
'Madonna forgets. Love laughs at locksmiths.'
The two women faced one another a minute. Some subtle emotion of
antagonism, already born, waxed into a larger consciousness between
them.
'How, Countess?' said Bona quietly.
'Madonna wears her bethrothal ring--a very _passepartout_. It is the
talisman will serve her with monks and saints alike.'
A little flush mantled to the Duchess's brow. Standing erect a moment
she slipped the ring from her finger, and held it out to Bernardo.
'It should be the pledge through love of Charity. Take it, in my lord's
good name, whose jealous representative I remain. And when thou
return'st it, may it be sanctified of new justice, child, against the
prick of envy and slander and the spite of venomous tongues.'
She turned away stately and resumed her needle as Bernardo, with a cry
of thanks, ran from the room. A minute or two later he appeared before
the sentry on the ramparts and flourished his token. To his surprise
the man hardly glanced at it as he stepped aside to let him pass. He
thought on this with some shapeless foreboding, as he leapt like a
chamois down the steeps of the tower, the food, which he had snatched
up, in his hands. God pity him and his awakening! There are emotions
too sacred for minuting. Let it suffice that Jacopo had proved too
faithful a prophylactic to superstition. The wretched monk had not been
allowed to justify his own prediction by dying of starvation. In that
last interval, between the Parablist's going and coming, his throat had
been cut.
A minute later Bernardo leapt like a madman from the tower. His face
was ashy, his hands trembling. At the foot of the curtain he stumbled
over a poor patch, prostrate and moaning.
'_I am thy Fool, and I shall never make thee smile again_.'
All quivering and unstrung, he threw himself on his knees by Cicada's
side.
'Up!' he screamed, 'up! Get you out of this Sodom ere the Lord destroy
it!'
The Fool bestirred himself, raising eyes full of a sombre, eager
questioning.
'I am forgiven?' he gasped; but Bernardo only cried frenziedly, 'Up!
up!'
*CHAPTER XI*
There was consternation in the castello, for its angel visitant had
disappeared. The evening following upon the episode of the ring saw his
quarters void of him, his household retinue troubled and anxious, and
some others in the palace at least as perturbed. It was not alone that
the individual sense of stewardship towards so rare a possession filled
each and all with forebodings as to the penalty likely to be exacted
should Galeazzo return to a knowledge of his loss; the loss itself of so
sweet and cleansing a personality was blighting. Now, for the first
time, perhaps, people recognised the real political significance of that
creed which they had been inclined hitherto merely to pet and humour as
the whimsey of a very engaging little propagandist. How sweet and
expansive it was! how progressive by the right blossoming road of
freedom! Where was their silver-tongued guide? And they flew and
buzzed, agitated like a bee-swarm that has lost its queen.
But, while they scurried aimless, a rumour of the truth rose like a foul
emanation, and, circulating among them, darkened men's brows and drove
women to a whispering gossip of terror. So yet another of the Duke's
inhumanities was at the root of this secession! By degrees the secret
leaked out--of that living entombment, of the boy's interference, of his
bloody forestalling by the executioner, of his flight, accompanied by
his Fool, from the gates. And now he was gone, whither none knew; but
of a certainty leaving the curse of his outraged suit on the house he
had tried to woo from wickedness.
The story gained nothing in relief as it grew. Whispers of that free
feminine bandying with their Parablist's name, of Catherine's childish
mockery of a sacred sentiment, deepened the common gloom. It mattered
nothing to the general opinion that this little vivacious Sforza had but
echoed its own bantering mood. Every popular joke that spells disaster
must have its scapegoat. And she was not liked. In the absence of her
father there were even venturings of frowning looks her way, which, when
she observed, the shrewd elfin creature did not forget.
And Bernardo returned not that night, nor during all the following day
was he heard of. Inquiries were set on foot, scouts unleashed, the
sbirri warned: he remained undiscovered.
Messer Carlo Lanti went about his business with a brow of thunder.
Once, on the second day, traversing, dark in cogitation, a lonely corner
of the castle enceinte, he came upon a figure which, as it were some
apparition of his thoughts suddenly materialised, shocked him to a
stand. The walls in this place met in a sunless, abysmal wedge; and,
gathered into the hollow between, the waters of the canal, welling
through subterranean conduits, made a deep head for the moat. And here,
gazing down at her reflection, it seemed, in that black stone-framed
mirror, stood Beatrice.
She was plainly conscious, for all her deep abstraction of the moment
before, of his approach, yet neither spoke nor so much as turned her
head as he came and stood beside her. It must have been some startle
more than human that had found her nerves responsive to its shock. Her
languor and indolence seemed impregnable, insensate, revealing no token
of the passion within. Like the warm, rich pastures which sleep over
swelling fires, the placid glow of her cheek and bosom appeared never so
fruitful in desire as when most threatening an outburst. Carlo, for all
his rage of suspicion, could not but be conscious of that appeal to his
senses. He frowned, and shifted, and grunted, while she stood
tranquilly facing him and fanning herself without a word. At length he
broke silence:--
'I had wished to see thee alone'--he stared fixedly and significantly at
the water, struggling to bully himself into brutality--'Nay, by God and
St. Ambrose,' he burst out, 'I believe we are well met in this place!'
Not a tremor shook her.
'Alone?' she murmured sleepily. 'Why not? there was not used to be this
ceremony between us.'
'I have done with all that,' he cried fiercely. 'I see thee
now--myself, at least, in the true light. Harlot! wouldst have turned my
hand against the angel that revealed thee! Where is he? Hast struck
surer the second time? I know thee--and if----'
He seized her wrist and turned her to the water. She did not resist or
cry out, though her cheek flushed in the pain of his cruel clutch.
'Know me!' she said. 'Didst thou ever know me? Only as the bull knows
the soft heifer--the nearest to his needs. _Thou_ hast done with
me--_thou_! I tell thee, if Fate had made a sacrament of thy passion,
yielding the visible sign, I had brought hither the monstrous pledge and
drowned it like a dog. Do we so treat what we love? I am not guilty of
Bernardo's death, if that is what you mean.'
He let her go, and retreated a step, glaring at her. Her blood ebbed and
flowed as tranquilly as her low voice had stabbed.
'This--to my face!' he gasped. Then he broke into furious laughter.
'Art well requited, if it is the truth. Love him! But, dead or alive,
he will not love thee--that saint--a wife dishonoured.'
'O noble bull--thou king of beasts!' she murmured.
'Why should I be generous?' he snarled. 'Have I reason to spare thee?
Yet I will be generous, an thou art guiltless of this, Beatrice. I have
loved thee, after my fashion.'
'Thou hast. Ah! If I might sponge away that memory!'
'Well, I would fain do the same for his sake.'
'Dog!'
'What!'
'Barest thou talk of love?--thou, who hast rolled me in thine arms, and
waked from sated ecstasy to call me murderess!'
'Had I not provocation, then? Faith, you bewilder me!'
'Poor, stupid brute!'
'Stupid I may be, yet not so blind as woman's folly. Hast borne me once,
Beatrice. Well, it is past: I ask nothing of it but thy trust.'
'_My trust!_'
'Ay, when I warn thee. This saint is not for thee. O, I am wide awake!
Stupid? like enough; but when a wife, the queenliest, parts with her
betrothal ring----'
She made a quick, involuntary gesture, stepping forward; then as
suddenly checked herself, with a soft, mocking laugh.
'O this bull!' she cried huskily--'this precisian of the new cult! Not
for me, quotha, but for another--a saint to all but the highest bidder!'
'Not for you nor any one,' he said savagely.
'What! not Bona either?' she said. 'Be warned by me, rather. Yours is
no wit for this encounter. Love is a coil, dear chuck; no
battering-ram. Not for me nor any? Maybe; but the game is in the
strife. Go, find your saint: I know nothing of him.'
'No, nor shall. Be warned, I say.'
'Well, you have said it, and more than once.'
He hesitated, ground his teeth, clapped his hands together, and turning,
left her.
Glooming and mumbling, he went back to the palace. A page met him with
the message that the Duchess of Milan desired his attendance. He
frowned, and went, as directed, to her private closet. He found Bona
alone, busy, or affecting to be busy, over a strip of embroidery. She
greeted him chilly; but it was evident that nervousness rather than
hauteur kept her seated. He saluted her coldly and silently, awaiting
her pleasure. She glanced once or twice at the closed portiere; then
braced herself to the ordeal with a rather quivering smile.
'This is a sad coil, Messer Carlo.'