"WHY COME YE NAT TO COURTE?"
"Le donne e i cavalier, gli affanni e gli agi,
Che ne invogliava araore e cortesia."
The little house--discreet affair of eaves modest as drooped eyelids, of
latticed windows, of wistaria before and a bower of willows behind--was
found and furnished out of the girls' store and the Captain's credit.
Donna Matura, a brown old woman, hideous, toothless, and inclined to
swooning, was installed as duenna. She was, indeed, owner of the house
and furniture, for which Olimpia paid and the Captain promised to pay;
but that did not appear until much later. There was a great charm, not
without a certain deal of luxury, in the place. Of course there was a
garden--a bright green nest of flowering trees and shrubs; in the middle
was a grass-plat; in that, again, a bronze fountain, which had the form
of three naked boys back to back, and an inscription to the effect that
it had been set up by a certain Galeotto Moro, in the days of Marquess
Lionel, "in honour of Saints Peter and Paul and of the Virgin Deipara,"
upon some special occasion of family thanksgiving. The weeping
willows--themselves fountains of green--sprayed over a stone seat. The
place bore signs of an honourable past; it was falling now gently to a
comely decay; but it answered every purpose. All promised well. So much
Captain Mosca was given to understand; yet it was hinted that his
promises were not complete. "My life and soul," cried he on his knees in
the garden, "the little affair is a matter of three minutes." It proved
to be a matter of more than three months and was then accomplished in
another way and with other results than had been looked for. Thus it
was.
When Angioletto had been assured of the nesting of his mate, he dressed
himself point-device and went to Court to deliver his credentials. He
found the lady upon whom so much depended, at the Schifanoia. Madama
Lionella d'Este, wife of the Count Guarino Guarini, was a
fresh-coloured, lusty young woman of three and twenty, not at all in
love with her husband, but very much in love with love. The Captain of
Lances had said truly when he shrugged her off as no beauty.
Large-limbed she was, the shape of a boy, with a long mouth and small
eyes, full-lipped, big in foot and hand. Yet she was a very merry soul,
frank if not free in her speech and gesture, and though liable to bursts
of angry temper, for the most part as innocent of malice as a tiger cub.
If you remember her an Este, you will forgive her much, excuse her
everything, and rather like her.
Angioletto, who found her sitting on the grass among her ladies,
advanced with great ceremony and many bows. Madama did not get up; no
one did; so Angioletto had to step gingerly into a ring of roguish
women to deliver his letter. Lionella scampered through it, reddening
with pleasure; she beckoned him with smiles to sit beside her.
"We are making rose-garlands to adorn our pretty heads," she said,
laughing. "Come and sit by me, Angioletto, and sing to us. Who knows but
what, if you are good, we shall not crown you with one of them?"
It was a great merit of Angioletto's that he always took things and men
(especially women) as he found them. Such as they were he could be for
the time. He was by no means waxen; elastic rather. Down he plumped,
accordingly, cross-legged by his new mistress, and warbled a canzone to
the viola which enchanted the lady.
"More, more, more!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Oh, boy, I could
have you a prince for less than that! What a throstle-pipe you have!"
It was, as he afterwards found out, of her habit to be for ever at
extremes; but just now, not knowing how to take her, he sang on all the
better for her praise; and he had her next wriggling in an ecstasy over
a trifle he made up on the spur of the moment--a snatch wherein roses
and a girl's face (Bellaroba's, be sure) took turns to be dominant. At
the end of this pretty piece the Countess Lionella fairly took his own
face between her hands, crumpled his lips into a bud and kissed them
full. Angioletto coloured, though no one else did. It was evidently
quite harmless, and afterwards he was ashamed of his shame.
As it was, a diversion of a different order broke in upon the next song
which, so soon as he had picked up his nerve, he adventured. One of the
Maids of Honour looked quickly over her shoulder, and "Hist, Madama! The
Duke!" she said, with wide eyes and a blush.
The song ceased, the whole company, Lionella included, scrambled to
their feet. Duke Borso, his portly body swaying like a carriage on
springs, his hands behind him, and attended by a tall young man, very
splendid and very blonde, came across the grass towards them. Angioletto
could not decide whether to think him rogue or prude. His puckered face
twitched, his eyes twitched, his pursed-up lips worked together; it was
again as if he were struggling with a laugh. He wore his tall square cap
well off his forehead, and looked what he really was--a strong man
tired, but not yet tired out, of kindness. The benevolence seemed
inborn, seemed fighting through every seam of the pompous face.
"Madonna! his generous motions work him into creases, as if he were
volcanic soil," thought Angioletto. Watching him narrowly as he came, he
decided that this was a master to be loved if not admired, respected but
not feared. "I should get the worst of a bout with him," thought he;
"but I had rather it were with him than with Apollo." That title was
just, as the reflection shrewd. Teofilo Calcagnini would have made a
terrible tutor to Master Phaëton.
Duke Borso bowed shortly to the standing maids, and favoured Angioletto
with a keen eye before he set a hand on his daughter's shoulder. She
looked a pleased welcome as he began to stroke her hair. "Ah, they love
the man," thought Angioletto; "good!"
"Why, chick," said Duke Borso, "you are like a cage of singing-birds
scared by the cat."
"Your Grace shall judge whether we are too scared to sing," replied his
laughing daughter. "Come," she added, turning to Angioletto, "tune your
viol and pipe to it again, my little poet."
The Duke made a wry mouth. "Hey, I have no ear for music, my dear," said
he.
Angioletto was ready for him. "If your Magnificence will permit," he
said, "I will take care not to offend his honourable ear. I will say my
piece, with no more music than will serve to tie word to word. May it be
so, Magnificence? Have I liberty, Madam?" He bowed, smiling, from one to
the other of the great people.
He was a very courtly and charming little person, this Tuscan youth.
Above all he had a ready address. So bright and strong, and yet so
deferential did he look, pleading his cause among them, Lionella could
have kissed him again for nothing more than his dexterity.
"Ah, you shall do whatever you like, Angioletto!" she cried.
Borso's eyes twinkled, and he primmed his lips. "I do not go so far as
Madama, Master Angioletto, but I shall be pleased to hear what you are
pleased to give me." He fell into an attitude of profound attention.
Angioletto, having bowed once more, began.
It so happened that Lorenzo de' Medici, that monster of genius, had not
long printed his _Caccia col falcone_. Angioletto had it by heart
against his need; using it now he could never have made a better
choice--as, indeed, he guessed. It was as good as a play to watch
Borso's wary eyes at the commencement of this piece, and to see them
drop their fence as the declamation went on. Lorenzo begins with a
pretty description of the dawn on Tuscan hilltops--
"Era già rosso tutto l'oriente,
E le cime de' monti parien d'oro," etc.
Borso, neither approving nor disapproving, kept his head disposed for
more. At
"Quando fui desto da certi rumori
Di buon sonagli ed allettar di cani"
he began to blink; with the quick direction to the huntsman--
"Deh, vanne innanzi, presto Capellaio,"
he stifled a smile. But the calling of the hounds by their names broke
down his guard. Angioletto shrilled them out in a high, boyish voice--
"Chiama Tamburo, Pezuolo e Martello,
La Foglia, la Castagna e la Guerrina,
Fagiano, Fagianin, Rocca e Capello,
E Friza, e Biondo, Bamboccio e Rossina,
Ghiotto, la Torta, Viola e Pestello,
E Serchio e Fuse e'l mio Buontempo vecchio,
Zambraco, Buratel, Scaccio e Pennecchio...."
Every muscle of the keen old hunter was now quivering; his eyes were
bright, his smile open and that of a child. To the last word of the
poem--and it has length--he followed without breath the checks, the
false casts, the bickering of the huntsmen, the petty incidents of a
breezy morning in the marshes, nodding at every point, missing nothing,
cracking his fingers, cheering under his breath, with delight
undisguised and interest unalloyed. The moment it was ended he seemed
prime for a burst of heedless comment; but he stopped, shut his lips
with a snap, and became the inscrutable ruler of a fief of the Empire
once more. But Angioletto knew that he had pleased him, for all that he
walked off as he had come, without word or sign.
He had pleased every one. Homing to his nest in the Borgo, he caught his
little Bellaroba in his arms with a rapture none the less because it had
been earned at a stretch. It was long before he could find time and
breath to lead her into the garden and have the story out. Olimpia,
coming down to look for them in the dusk, found that a seat for two
would easily hold one more. It should be added of Angioletto that he
suppressed the incident of the Countess Lionella's salute.
At supper there were evidences that, whatever had been Angioletto's
fate, all had not gone so well with the Captain of Lances. Not that
appetite failed him; indeed, he ate the more for his taciturnity. Yet
not repletion made him sigh, for he sighed consumedly before he began
and rather less when he had finished, as though the kindlier juices of
our nature had got to work to disperse the melancholic. Angioletto
rallied him upon his gloom, but to no purpose. The meal was a silent
one; almost the only conversation was that of the minstrel's foot with
Bellaroba's under the table.
The truth was, that of conversation the Captain had had enough before
supper--a very short colloquy with his Olimpia. In it he was brought to
confess that he had seen his patron that morning. "Well?" had been
Olimpia's commentary--a shot which raked the Captain fore and aft. Well,
he desperately admitted, there was nothing actually arranged:
_patienza_! His most noble master had been greatly harassed with
affairs--the Duke's approaching visit to Rome, the precise forms which
must be observed, the punctilios, the hundred niceties of etiquette;
"Ah, _patienza_!" urged the sweating Mosca.
Patience, she saw, was the only wear; but, per Bacco, he should learn it
too! She was in a high rage. The Captain was given to know that Ferrara
was a great city, with more houses in it than one; in fine, he was shown
the door. Supper first was an extreme and contemptuous condescension of
Olimpia's, urged by the thought that a fed Mosca might be a more
desperate Mosca, while a lean one would be desperate only for a meal.
A true relation of what passed in the Palazzo Guarini may serve to show
how just she had been. The Count had received news of his henchman's
attendance with a nod, had kept him waiting two hours in the _cortile_,
then remembered him and bid him upstairs.
"Well, dog," said the young lord, from his dressing-table, "and why the
devil are you so late to report yourself?"
"Ah, Excellence, believe me--" began to stutter the Captain.
"That is exactly what I will not do, my man. Who was that wench at your
back yesterday?"
The Captain rubbed his hands. "Excellence, a wench indeed! A golden
Venetian--glorious! Dove-eyed, honey-tongued, and very much your
lordship's servant, I do assure you."
"You are so completely and at such length a fool, Mosca," said Count
Guarini, with a yawn, "and strive so desperately to be rascal in spite
of it, that I am almost sorry for you. Tie me these points, my good
fellow, get me my sword, and go to the devil with your golden Venetian."
That, believe me, had been all. Therefore Captain Mosca, as he slunk out
into the dark after supper in obedience to his inexorable Olimpia, felt
that he must be more ingenious than he had supposed. At the same time it
is only fair to say that when he had spoken so hopefully of his affair
to the lady on the pillion he had believed every word of his own story.
A man puts on spectacles to suit his complexion: the Captain's was
sanguine.
V