THE DESERTED SHRINE
Kenyon knew the sanctity which Hilda (faithful Protestant, and daughter
of the Puritans, as the girl was) imputed to this shrine. He was aware
of the profound feeling of responsibility, as well earthly as religious,
with which her conscience had been impressed, when she became the
occupant of her aerial chamber, and undertook the task of keeping the
consecrated lamp alight. There was an accuracy and a certainty about
Hilda’s movements, as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have
their roots in right or wrong, which made it as possible and safe to
rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp (if she were in
life, and able to creep up the steps), as upon the rising of to-morrow’s
sun, with lustre-undiminished from to-day.
The sculptor could scarcely believe his eyes, therefore, when he saw the
flame flicker and expire. His sight had surely deceived him. And now,
since the light did not reappear, there must be some smoke wreath
or impenetrable mist brooding about the tower’s gray old head, and
obscuring it from the lower world. But no! For right over the dim
battlements, as the wind chased away a mass of clouds, he beheld a star,
and moreover, by an earnest concentration of his sight, was soon able to
discern even the darkened shrine itself. There was no obscurity around
the tower; no infirmity of his own vision. The flame had exhausted its
supply of oil, and become extinct. But where was Hilda?
A man in a cloak happened to be passing; and Kenyon--anxious to distrust
the testimony of his senses, if he could get more acceptable evidence on
the other side--appealed to him.
“Do me the favor, Signore,” said he, “to look at the top of yonder
tower, and tell me whether you see the lamp burning at the Virgin’s
shrine.”
“The lamp, Signore?” answered the man, without at first troubling
himself to look up. “The lamp that has burned these four hundred years!
How is it possible, Signore, that it should not be burning now?” “But
look!” said the sculptor impatiently. With good-natured indulgence for
what he seemed to consider as the whim of an eccentric Forestiero, the
Italian carelessly threw his eyes upwards; but, as soon as he perceived
that there was really no light, he lifted his hands with a vivid
expression of wonder and alarm.
“The lamp is extinguished!” cried he. “The lamp that has been
burning these four hundred years! This surely must portend some great
misfortune; and, by my advice, Signore, you will hasten hence, lest the
tower tumble on our heads. A priest once told me that, if the Virgin
withdrew her blessing and the light went out, the old Palazzo del Torte
would sink into the earth, with all that dwell in it. There will be a
terrible crash before morning!”
The stranger made the best of his way from the doomed premises; while
Kenyon--who would willingly have seen the tower crumble down before his
eyes, on condition of Hilda’s safety--determined, late as it was, to
attempt ascertaining if she were in her dove-cote.
Passing through the arched entrance,--which, as is often the case with
Roman entrances, was as accessible at midnight as at noon,--he groped
his way to the broad staircase, and, lighting his wax taper, went
glimmering up the multitude of steps that led to Hilda’s door. The hour
being so unseasonable, he intended merely to knock, and, as soon as
her voice from within should reassure him, to retire, keeping his
explanations and apologies for a fitter time. Accordingly, reaching the
lofty height where the maiden, as he trusted, lay asleep, with angels
watching over her, though the Virgin seemed to have suspended her care,
he tapped lightly at the door panels,--then knocked more forcibly,--then
thundered an impatient summons. No answer came; Hilda, evidently, was
not there.
After assuring himself that this must be the fact, Kenyon descended the
stairs, but made a pause at every successive stage, and knocked at the
door of its apartment, regardless whose slumbers he might disturb, in
his anxiety to learn where the girl had last been seen. But, at each
closed entrance, there came those hollow echoes, which a chamber, or any
dwelling, great or small, never sends out, in response to human knuckles
or iron hammer, as long as there is life within to keep its heart from
getting dreary.
Once indeed, on the lower landing-place, the sculptor fancied that there
was a momentary stir inside the door, as if somebody were listening at
the threshold. He hoped, at least, that the small iron-barred aperture
would be unclosed, through which Roman housekeepers are wont to take
careful cognizance of applicants for admission, from a traditionary
dread, perhaps, of letting in a robber or assassin. But it remained
shut; neither was the sound repeated; and Kenyon concluded that his
excited nerves had played a trick upon his senses, as they are apt to do
when we most wish for the clear evidence of the latter.
There was nothing to be done, save to go heavily away, and await
whatever good or ill to-morrow’s daylight might disclose.
Betimes in the morning, therefore, Kenyon went back to the Via
Portoghese, before the slant rays of the sun had descended halfway down
the gray front of Hilda’s tower. As he drew near its base, he saw the
doves perched in full session, on the sunny height of the battlements,
and a pair of them--who were probably their mistress’s especial pets,
and the confidants of her bosom secrets, if Hilda had any--came shooting
down, and made a feint of alighting on his shoulder. But, though they
evidently recognized him, their shyness would not yet allow so decided
a demonstration. Kenyon’s eyes followed them as they flew upward, hoping
that they might have come as joyful messengers of the girl’s safety,
and that he should discern her slender form, half hidden by the parapet,
trimming the extinguished lamp at the Virgin’s shrine, just as other
maidens set about the little duties of a household. Or, perhaps, he
might see her gentle and sweet face smiling down upon him, midway
towards heaven, as if she had flown thither for a day or two, just to
visit her kindred, but had been drawn earthward again by the spell of
unacknowledged love.
But his eyes were blessed by no such fair vision or reality; nor, in
truth, were the eager, unquiet flutterings of the doves indicative of
any joyful intelligence, which they longed to share with Hilda’s friend,
but of anxious inquiries that they knew not how to utter. They could
not tell, any more than he, whither their lost companion had withdrawn
herself, but were in the same void despondency with him, feeling their
sunny and airy lives darkened and grown imperfect, now that her sweet
society was taken out of it.
In the brisk morning air, Kenyon found it much easier to pursue his
researches than at the preceding midnight, when, if any slumberers heard
the clamor that he made, they had responded only with sullen and drowsy
maledictions, and turned to sleep again. It must be a very dear and
intimate reality for which people will be content to give up a dream.
When the sun was fairly up, however, it was quite another thing. The
heterogeneous population, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower,
and the other extensive regions of the palace, were now willing to tell
all they knew, and imagine a great deal more. The amiability of these
Italians, assisted by their sharp and nimble wits, caused them to
overflow with plausible suggestions, and to be very bounteous in their
avowals of interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demonstrative people,
such expressions would have implied an eagerness to search land and sea,
and never rest till she were found. In the mouths that uttered them they
meant good wishes, and were, so far, better than indifference. There
was little doubt that many of them felt a genuine kindness for the shy,
brown-haired, delicate young foreign maiden, who had flown from some
distant land to alight upon their tower, where she consorted only with
the doves. But their energy expended itself in exclamation, and they
were content to leave all more active measures to Kenyon, and to the
Virgin, whose affair it was to see that the faithful votary of her lamp
received no harm.
In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhabitants might
be, the concierge under the archway would be cognizant of all their
incomings and issuings forth. But except in rare cases, the general
entrance and main staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the
street, of which they form a sort of by-lane. The sculptor, therefore,
could hope to find information about Hilda’s movements only from casual
observers.
On probing the knowledge of these people to the bottom, there was
various testimony as to the period when the girl had last been seen.
Some said that it was four days since there had been a trace of her;
but an English lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather of
opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with a drawing-book
in her hand. Having no acquaintance with the young person, she had taken
little notice and might have been mistaken. A count, on the piano next
above, was very certain that he had lifted his hat to Hilda, under the
archway, two afternoons ago. An old woman, who had formerly tended the
shrine, threw some light upon the matter, by testifying that the lamp
required to be replenished once, at least, in three days, though its
reservoir of oil was exceedingly capacious.
On the whole, though there was other evidence enough to create some
perplexity, Kenyon could not satisfy himself that she had been visible
since the afternoon of the third preceding day, when a fruit seller
remembered her coming out of the arched passage, with a sealed packet in
her hand. As nearly as he could ascertain, this was within an hour
after Hilda had taken leave of the sculptor at his own studio, with the
understanding that they were to meet at the Vatican the next day. Two
nights, therefore, had intervened, during which the lost maiden was
unaccounted for.
The door of Hilda’s apartments was still locked, as on the preceding
night; but Kenyon sought out the wife of the person who sublet them, and
prevailed on her to give him admittance by means of the duplicate key
which the good woman had in her possession. On entering, the maidenly
neatness and simple grace, recognizable in all the arrangements, made
him visibly sensible that this was the daily haunt of a pure soul, in
whom religion and the love of beauty were at one.
Thence, the sturdy Roman matron led the sculptor across a narrow
passage, and threw open the door of a small chamber, on the threshold of
which he reverently paused. Within, there was a bed, covered with white
drapery, enclosed with snowy curtains like a tent, and of barely width
enough for a slender figure to repose upon it. The sight of this cool,
airy, and secluded bower caused the lover’s heart to stir as if enough
of Hilda’s gentle dreams were lingering there to make him happy for
a single instant. But then came the closer consciousness of her loss,
bringing along with it a sharp sting of anguish.
“Behold, Signore,” said the matron; “here is the little staircase by
which the signorina used to ascend and trim the Blessed Virgin’s lamp.
She was worthy to be a Catholic, such pains the good child bestowed to
keep it burning; and doubtless the Blessed Mary will intercede for her,
in consideration of her pious offices, heretic though she was. What will
become of the old palazzo, now that the lamp is extinguished, the saints
above us only know! Will you mount, Signore, to the battlements, and see
if she have left any trace of herself there?”
The sculptor stepped across the chamber and ascended the little
staircase, which gave him access to the breezy summit of the tower. It
affected him inexpressibly to see a bouquet of beautiful flowers beneath
the shrine, and to recognize in them an offering of his own to Hilda,
who had put them in a vase of water, and dedicated them to the Virgin,
in a spirit partly fanciful, perhaps, but still partaking of the
religious sentiment which so profoundly influenced her character. One
rosebud, indeed, she had selected for herself from the rich mass of
flowers; for Kenyon well remembered recognizing it in her bosom when he
last saw her at his studio.
“That little part of my great love she took,” said he to himself. “The
remainder she would have devoted to Heaven; but has left it withering
in the sun and wind. Ah! Hilda, Hilda, had you given me a right to watch
over you, this evil had not come!”
“Be not downcast, signorino mio,” said the Roman matron, in response to
the deep sigh which struggled out of Kenyon’s breast. “The dear little
maiden, as we see, has decked yonder blessed shrine as devoutly as
I myself, or any Other good Catholic woman, could have done. It is a
religious act, and has more than the efficacy of a prayer. The signorina
will as surely come back as the sun will fall through the window
to-morrow no less than to-day. Her own doves have often been missing
for a day or two, but they were sure to come fluttering about her head
again, when she least expected them. So will it be with this dove-like
child.”
“It might be so,” thought Kenyon, with yearning anxiety, “if a pure
maiden were as safe as a dove, in this evil world of ours.”
As they returned through the studio, with the furniture and arrangements
of which the sculptor was familiar, he missed a small ebony writing-desk
that he remembered as having always been placed on a table there. He
knew that it was Hilda’s custom to deposit her letters in this desk,
as well as other little objects of which she wished to be specially
careful.
“What has become of it?” he suddenly inquired, laying his hand on the
table.
“Become of what, pray?” exclaimed the woman, a little disturbed. “Does
the Signore suspect a robbery, then?”
“The signorina’s writing-desk is gone,” replied Kenyon; “it always stood
on this table, and I myself saw it there only a few days ago.”
“Ah, well!” said the woman, recovering her composure, which she seemed
partly to have lost. “The signorina has doubtless taken it away with
her. The fact is of good omen; for it proves that she did not go
unexpectedly, and is likely to return when it may best suit her
convenience.”
“This is very singular,” observed Kenyon. “Have the rooms been entered
by yourself, or any other person, since the signorina’s disappearance?”
“Not by me, Signore, so help me Heaven and the saints!” said the matron.
“And I question whether there are more than two keys in Rome that will
suit this strange old lock. Here is one; and as for the other, the
signorina carlies it in her pocket.”
The sculptor had no reason to doubt the word of this respectable dame.
She appeared to be well meaning and kind hearted, as Roman matrons
generally are; except when a fit of passion incites them to shower
horrible curses on an obnoxious individual, or perhaps to stab him
with the steel stiletto that serves them for a hairpin. But Italian
asseverations of any questionable fact, however true they may chance to
be, have no witness of their truth in the faces of those who utter them.
Their words are spoken with strange earnestness, and yet do not vouch
for themselves as coming from any depth, like roots drawn out of the
substance of the soul, with some of the soil clinging to them. There is
always a something inscrutable, instead of frankness, in their eyes. In
short, they lie so much like truth, and speak truth so much as if they
were telling a lie, that their auditor suspects himself in the wrong,
whether he believes or disbelieves them; it being the one thing certain,
that falsehood is seldom an intolerable burden to the tenderest of
Italian consciences.
“It is very strange what can have become of the desk!” repeated Kenyon,
looking the woman in the face.
“Very strange, indeed, Signore,” she replied meekly, without turning
away her eyes in the least, but checking his insight of them at about
half an inch below the surface. “I think the signorina must have taken
it with her.”
It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon therefore departed,
after making an arrangement with the woman, by the terms of which she
was to allow the apartments to remain in their present state, on his
assuming the responsibility for the rent.
He spent the day in making such further search and investigation as he
found practicable; and, though at first trammelled by an unwillingness
to draw public attention to Hilda’s affairs, the urgency of the
circumstances soon compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the
course of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of fathoming the
mystery, not merely by his personal efforts and those of his brother
artists and friends, but through the police, who readily undertook the
task, and expressed strong confidence of success. But the Roman police
has very little efficiency, except in the interest of the despotism of
which it is a tool. With their cocked hats, shoulder belts, and swords,
they wear a sufficiently imposing aspect, and doubtless keep their eyes
open wide enough to track a political offender, but are too often blind
to private outrage, be it murder or any lesser crime. Kenyon counted
little upon their assistance, and profited by it not at all.
Remembering the mystic words which Miriam had addressed to him, he
was anxious to meet her, but knew not whither she had gone, nor how
to obtain an interview either with herself or Donatello. The days wore
away, and still there were no tidings of the lost one; no lamp rekindled
before the Virgin’s shrine; no light shining into the lover’s heart;
no star of Hope--he was ready to say, as he turned his eyes almost
reproachfully upward--in heaven itself!