Days flew; the wife of the prefect arrived at Imola; Ramiro d'Orco
went out to meet her at a league's distance from the city; no honour,
no attention did he neglect; the guards at the gates received her
drawn up in martial array; and in the palace which had been engaged
for her, at the foot of the great staircase, Leonora waited with her
maids to welcome the young wife of him whom she had so tenderly loved.
It was a strange meeting between these two girls--for both were yet
girls--neither twenty years of age. They both gazed upon each other
with curious, scrutinizing eyes; but their feelings were very
different. Eloise de Chaumont marvelled at Leonora's wonderful
beauty--at the profusion of her jetty hair--at the softened lustre of
her large, full, shaded eyes--at the delicate carving of the ever
varying features--at the undulating grace, flowing, with every
movement of her rounded, symmetrical limbs, into some new form of
loveliness. She thought, "Well, she is beautiful, indeed! No wonder
Lorenzo loved her. But, on my faith, she does not appear one to treat
any man cruelly. I should rather think she would yield at love's first
summons."
Leonora, on the other hand, though she was calm and perfectly
composed, felt matter for pain in the gaze which Eloise fixed upon
her. She could plainly see that Lorenzo's wife knew of the love which
had once existed between him and herself. "Perhaps he himself had told
her of it--and how had he told it? Had he boasted that he had won her
heart and then cast her off? She would not believe it. Notwithstanding
all, she believed him to be noble still. He might be fickle; but
Lorenzo could not be base. Oh yes, fickle he was even to Eloise," she
thought. "From every report which had reached her, he had soon wearied
of her who had supplanted the first love of his heart."
A certain wavering look of grief, which came from time to time into
the countenance of Eloise, showed that she too was somehow
disappointed, and a strange, unnatural bond of sympathy seemed to
establish itself between two hearts the most opposite in feelings and
in principles, the least likely, from circumstances, to be linked
together.
They passed nearly an hour together; and Eloise promised on the
following day to come and partake of a banquet at the villa on the
hill. She had a sort of caressing way with her which was very winning;
and when Leonora told her she must go, for that Leonardo, the great
painter, waited her at home, she took the once promised bride of her
husband in her arms, and held her there for a moment, kissing her
cheek tenderly. "You are very beautiful," she whispered; "well may the
painter take you for his model!"
Leonora blushed and disengaged herself; and, though she was still calm
as a statue externally, many an hour passed before her heart recovered
from the agitation of that interview.
She was destined to feel more emotion, too, that day. Leonardo de
Vinci waited her as she expected, and at once proceeded to his work.
While Ramiro d'Orco remained, the painter was nearly silent; but as
soon as the baron was gone, he began to speak; and his speech was
cruel upon poor Leonora. He asked her many questions regarding her
late meeting with Lorenzo's wife, made her describe Eloise, and
commented as she spoke.
Then he began to ask questions as to the past--not direct and
intrusive, but such as forced indirectly much of the truth from
Leonora regarding her own feelings and her view of Lorenzo's
conduct--and the painter meditated gloomily. He had not yet mentioned
Lorenzo's name, but at length it was spoken with a melancholy allusion
to the many chances, deceits, and accidents which might bring disunion
between two hearts both true.
Leonora burst into tears, and, starting up, exclaimed, "I cannot--I
cannot, my friend. If you would have my picture, forbear! Come
to-morrow; to-day I can bear no more."
So saying, she left the room, and Leonardo remained in thought,
sometimes gazing at the picture he had commenced, sometimes at the
pallet in his hand, figuring in fancy strange forms and glowing
landscapes out of the colours daubed upon it. But though the eye, and
the fancy, and the imagination had occupation, the reasoning mind,
which has a strange faculty of separating itself from things which
seem its attributes, nay, even parts of its essence, to the
superficial eye, was busy with matters altogether different. It was
engaged with Leonora and her fate.
"This is strange--this is unaccountable," he thought; "she loves him
still; she always has loved him. She casts the blame of their
separation on him; and he--miserable young man!--thinks her to blame,
and has put a seal upon his own wretchedness by marrying yon light
piece of vanity whom I saw in Rome. Pride, pride! How much
wretchedness would be spared if people would condescend to explain;
and yet perhaps there has been some dark work under this; it must be
so, or some explanation would have taken place. I will search it to
the bottom. I will know the whole ere I am done. They cannot, they
shall not baffle me."
He started up, laid down his pallet and his brushes, and then, after
gazing at the picture for a moment, took his way down the few steps
which led from Leonora's saloon down to a little flower-garden, shaded
by some pine-trees, in a quiet nook at the end of the terrace. Two
marble steps brought him to the terrace itself, and, hurrying along
its broad expanse, not without feeling and noticing the beauty of the
view, Leonardo reached the wide avenue, lined with stone-pines, which
led to the gates of the gardens.
About half way down he met a man coming leisurely up; and, as his
all-noting eye fell upon him, the painter suddenly stopped, saying:
"Who are you, my friend? I know your face right well, and yet I cannot
attach a name to it."
"I know yours too, signor," replied the other; "but there is a
difference between Leonardo da Vinci, the great master, and poor
Antonio, the humble friend and servant of Lorenzo Visconti; the one
name will live for ever, the other will never be known. I met you and
spoke to you once or twice at Belgiojoso in happier days."
"Ay, I recollect you now," said Leonardo; "but how happens it, my
friend, that you are going up to the villa of the Signor d'Orco and
his daughter?"
"I was going to see the young signora," replied Antonio. "I do not
perceive why I should not. I have ever loved her in my humble way, and
love her still; for, to tell the truth, signer maestro, I cannot
believe that she has ever wilfully ill-treated one whom I love better
still."
"Nor I--nor I, Antonio," cried the painter, eagerly grasping his arm;
"she believes that he has ill-treated her."
"Nay, God knows, not that," replied Antonio. "Oh, had you seen how he
pined, signor, for the least news of her, or how his heart was torn
and moved when his letters were returned with nothing but a scrap of
her handwriting, contemptuous in its tone and meaning, you would know
at once he is not to blame."
"Nor she either, by my hopes of Heaven!" cried Leonardo. "But come
with me, good friend--come with me. You cannot see the lady--she is
ill; and I have matter for your own private ear. There is some dark
mystery here, which I fain would unravel with your aid. I am resolute
to sound it to the very depth."
"But how can we do that?" said Antonio; "those who have kept their
secrets so well and so long, are not likely to let it slip out of
their hands now. These are no babes we have deal with, signor, and if
Ramiro d'Orco is at the bottom of it, you might as well hope to see
through a block of stone as to discover anything that is in his mind."
"He has no share in it, I think," answered Leonardo, after a moment's
thought. "He is a man moved solely by his ambition or his interests;
and all his interests would have led him to seek this marriage rather
than break it off. Not a man in Italy, who seeks to gain a seat upon
the hill of power, but looks to the King of France to lend a helping
hand, and this breach between his daughter and Lorenzo tends more to
Ramiro's destruction than his elevation. Do you not know some one who
has some ancient grudge or desperate enmity towards our young
prefect?"
Antonio started as if some one had struck him a blow. The truth, the
whole truth, flashed upon his mind at once.
"The villain!" he murmured; "but, to expose him altogether, and to
discover all, we must, we must be very careful. I do know such a man,
Signor Leonardo; but let us be very secret or we may frighten him.
Satan was never more cunning, Moloch more cruel. He was bred up in a
school of blood and craft, and we must speak of him in whispers till
we can grasp him by the neck. Let us be silent as we pass through the
town. There, at your lodgings in the inn, after seeing that all the
doors are closed, and no one eaves-dropping around, I will tell you
all I know, and leave you to judge if my suspicions are right."
Not a word more was spoken; and as the results of the conversation
which took place between them after they reached the "Keys of St.
Peter" will be developed hereafter, it were mere waste of time to
relate it in this place.
Some words, sad, but true, may, indeed, be noted.
"For our own heart's ease," said Leonardo, "we had better solve all
doubts; but yet what skills it? They can never be happy. Lorenzo's
rash marriage puts an everlasting bar between them."
"I will not only solve all doubts, but I will punish the traitor,"
said Antonio; "for, if we let him escape he may do more mischief
still. He shall die for his pains, if my own hand does it. But I think
I have a better hold on him than that; I will make him over to a
stronger hand."
That day came and went. There was a great banquet at the villa of
Ramiro d'Orco, which passed as such banquets usually do, and was only
marked by one expression of the Countess Visconti when she was led by
Leonora through her own private apartments. She was pleased
particularly with the beautiful saloon, and the sweet retired garden
on the terrace with the steps between.
"Oh! what a charming spot to meet a lover!" she said, gazing
laughingly into Leonora's eyes.
"I meet no lover here but my own thoughts," replied Leonora; and the
conversation dropped.
The next day every one of distinction was invited to the house of the
young countess; and it seemed strange to Leonora to find there several
gentlemen, both French and Italian, arrived that day from Rome. They
were evidently very intimate with the fair Eloise, but she was
somewhat on her guard, and nothing appeared to shock or offend,
although Leonora thought:
"If I had a husband, I would not waste so many smiles on other men."
Balls, festas, parties of pleasure through the country round succeeded
during the ensuing week, chequered but not saddened by the news that
there had been hard fighting at Forli, where lay the army of the Duke
of Valentinois, assisted by the French under Lorenzo Visconti, and
that the town, besieged by them, still held out. Imola had never seen
such gay doings; and Leonora, at her father's desire, took part in all
the festivities of the time, admired, sought, courted, but apparently
indifferent to all. Strange to say she seemed at once to have won the
regard, if not the affections of Eloise Visconti. When there was no
gay flatterer near her, she must have the society of her beautiful
Leonora; and certainly there was something wonderfully engaging in
Eloise when she chose. There might be something in her manner, even
apart from her demeanour toward men, which created a doubt, a
suspicion in the bosom of a pure-minded woman; but yet it was soon
forgotten in her apparent child-like simplicity.
Leonardo da Vinci did not seem to love her; her beauty was not of the
style that pleased him, and when asked to paint her portrait he
declined, alleging that he had undertaken more than he could
accomplish already. His portrait of Leonora made more progress in a
week than any work he had ever undertaken. The head was finished, the
limbs and the drapery sketched out; but when he had arrived at about
the tenth sitting, he requested to have easel and picture both brought
down to the citadel, where a large room was assigned to him. It
fatigued him, he said, to go to the villa every day; and, having
finished the face and head, the few more sittings which were required
could be given him there whenever he found it necessary to ask them.
Leonora willingly consented to come at his call; and for several days
he worked diligently for nearly twelve hours a day, shut up in the
hall where he painted, or in a small room adjoining, where he kept the
implements of his art.
It was on Tuesday, the 19th of September, early in the morning, that
Leonora received a brief note from the great painter, loosely
translatable as follows:
"Most beautiful and excellent Lady,--Though to your perfections my
picture owes an excellence which the painter could never have given
from his mere mind, yet there are wants which time and observation
have enabled me to detect. Come to me, then, if it be possible, at
four this evening, and enable me to supply those graces which had
previously escaped me. Be as beautiful as possible, and, for that
object, as gay. Might I commend to you the depth of two fingers
breadths of that fine old Pulciano wine before you come? It heightened
your colour, I saw, when last you tasted it; and I want a little more
of the red in the cheek."
Leonora was punctual to the appointment, and Leonardo, meeting her at
the door of the hall, led her round by the back of the picture to the
small room I have mentioned, saying, "You must not see it now till it
is finished." Then, seating her in a large arm-chair, he stood and
gazed at her for a moment, saying, laughingly, "You must be content to
be stared at, for I wish to take down every shade of expression in the
note-book of my mind, and write it out upon the picture in the other
room." After a few minutes, changing her attitude once or twice, and
changing her hair to suit his fancy, he went out into the hall, and
engaged himself upon the picture.
For some five minutes Leonora satin solitude, and all seemed silence
through the citadel. Then came some noise in the courtyard below--the
clatter of horses feet and voices speaking; and then some steps upon
the flight of stairs which led up to the grand apartments of the
castle. All these sounds were so usual, however, that in themselves
they could excite no emotion. But yet Leonora turned somewhat pale.
There was something in the sound of the step of one of those who
mounted the stairs which recalled other days to her mind. It might be
heavier, firmer, less elastic, but yet it was very like Lorenzo's
tread. Who ever forgets the footstep of one we have loved?
Before she could consider long, Leonardo da Vinci came back to her,
and seeming to have noticed nothing that went on without, took his
place before her, and gazed at her again. He had nearly closed the
door behind him, but not quite, and the next moment a step was heard
in the adjoining hall, and some one speaking.
"This is the saloon, my lord," said the voice of Antonio, opening the
door of the hall. "There it stands; and a masterpiece of art it is. I
will now tell the Signor Ramiro that you are here; but I will go
slowly, so you will have time."
The well-know step sounded across the marble pavement of the hall, at
first firm and strong, then less regular, then weak and unsteady.
Next came a silent pause, and Leonora could hear her heart beat in the
stillness; and then a voice was raised in lamentation.
"Oh, Leonora! Leonora!" it cried, "had you been but as true as you are
beautiful, what misery would you have spared the heart that loved you
as never woman before was loved! Had you but told me to pour out the
last drop of life's blood in my veins at your feet, you had been kind,
not cruel; but you have condemned me to endless tortures for having
loved--nay, for loving you still too well!"
Leonardo da Vinci took Leonora's hand as if he would have led her
towards the door, but she snatched it from him, and covered her eyes,
while her whole frame shook as if with an ague-fit.
The speaker in the hall was silent; but then came once more the sound
of steps upon the stairs, and Lorenzo's voice exclaimed, "Oh, God!
have they given me but this short moment?" and his steps could be
heard retreating towards the door. Then the voice of Ramiro d'Orco was
heard saluting him in courteous terms, and the sound died away
altogether.
Profound silence reigned in the hall and in the little room adjoining;
but at length Leonora took her hands from her eyes, and said, in a
mournful and reproachful tone, "If you have done this, you have been
very cruel."
"I did it not," answered Leonardo; "but yet I am right glad it has
happened. You accuse him of having been faithless to you, he accuses
you of having been fickle to him. Both have been betrayed, my child.
Both have been true, though both may be wretched."
"But what matters it to either of us?" said Leonora, almost sternly;
"the time has passed, the die is cast, and there is no retrieving the
fatal throw."
"And yet," said Leonardo da Vinci, "to a fine mind, methinks it must
be a grand and noble satisfaction to discover that one we loved, but
doubted or condemned, had been accused unjustly--that we have not
loved unworthily--that the high qualities, the noble spirit, the
generous, sincere, and tender heart, were not vain dreams of fancy or
affection, but steadfast truths of God's own handiwork, which we had
reverenced and loved as the finest gifts of the Almighty Benefactor.
You may not feel this now, Leonora, in the bitterness of
disappointment, but the time will come when such thoughts will be
comfort and consolation to you--when you will glory and feel pride in
having loved and been loved by such a man."
Leonora snatched his hand and kissed it warmly. "Thank you," she said,
"thank you. To-night or to-morrow I shall have to meet him in public,
and your words will give me strength. Now that I know him worthy as I
once thought him, I shall glory in his renown, as you have well said;
for my Lorenzo's spirit, I feel, is married to mine, though our hands
must be for ever disunited. Farewell, my friend, farewell. I will no
longer regret this accident; it has had its bitter, but it has its
sweet also;" and, clasping her hands together, she exclaimed almost
wildly, "Oh, yes, I am loved, I am loved--still loved!"
She arose from her chair as if to go, but then, catching hold of the
tall back, she said, "Let me crave you, Signor Leonardo, bid some of
the attendants order my jennet round to the back of the palace. I am
wonderfully weak, and I fear my feet would hardly carry me in search
of them myself."
"I will go with you to the villa," said Leonardo. "My horse is here
below. Sit you still in that chair till I return, and meditate strong
thoughts, not weak ones. Pause not on tender recollections, but
revolve high designs, and your mind will recover strength, and your
body through your mind."