THE
DUCHESS OF TRAJETTO.
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "MARY POWELL."
Giulia Gonzaga, che, dovunque il piede
Volge, e dovunque i sereni occhi gira,
Non pur ogn' altra di beltà le cede,
Ma, come scesa dal ciel, Dea l'ammira.
Ariosto.
LONDON:
ARTHUR HALL & CO., 26, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1863.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE DUCHESS IN DANGER 1
II. THE DUCHESS IN SAFETY 15
III. THE DUCHESS'S STORY 34
IV. MOORISH SLAVES 48
V. THE CARDINAL AND THE JEW 62
VI. THE SORROWS OF THE JEW 74
VII. SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO 86
VIII. THE DUCHESS AND THE PAINTER 99
IX. DAWN OF A PURE LIGHT 115
X. VITTORIA DI COLONNA 129
XI. VALDÉS AND OCHINO 144
XII. GOING TO LAW 159
XIII. THE CARDINAL TEMPTED 172
XIV. WHAT BEFEL BARBAROSSA 187
XV. MORE ABOUT THE CARDINAL 197
XVI. THE DUCHESS AND THE MARCHIONESS 221
XVII. ISCHIA 233
XVIII. A BETTER LIFE 247
XIX. REST AND PEACE 261
APPENDIX 275
THE DUCHESS OF TRAJETTO.
CHAPTER I.
THE DUCHESS IN DANGER.
It was night--the Duchess was in bed. Her hand shaded her wakeful eyes
from the light of a silver lamp fed with perfumed oil, which shone only
on what was calculated to please the taste, minister to the luxury, and
display the wealth of the owner. Rare paintings of Scriptural and
mythological subjects decorated the walls, the ceiling was richly
moulded and gilt, the floor of polished marble was only partially
covered with fine matting, a few choice statuettes and vases occupied
brackets and niches; the massive toilette service and mirror-frame of
precious metal were shaded by some texture of light silvery tissue;
while half-open cabinets and caskets revealed priceless jewels and
fragrant perfumes. On a velvet cushion lay an illuminated missal and a
rosary.
Here was every outward appliance, one might think, to make a favourite
of fortune happy; but the good and honest face of the Duchess, which
spoke her every thought, did not look so. The night was sultry; she had
tried to sleep, but could not; and now she was feverishly endeavouring
to think of something pleasant, without success.
The deep stone windows of her apartment, which were open, commanded a
small garden sleeping in the moonlight, where terraces were cut on a
declivity; and where Cupid and Psyche, Diana with her hounds, and Apollo
with his bow, gleamed white among orange, lemon, and myrtle. This little
pleasaunce was shut in within the walls of a strong baronial castle;
and beyond them lay the little town of Fondi, consisting of a single
street built on the Appian Way. Beyond it, a lake, a forest, a marsh,
stretching down to the blue brimming Mediterranean. The little town
seemed steeped in sleep: the silence was intense.
All at once, a low, regular sound jarred on the Duchess's quickened ear.
"That's a very unaccountable noise," thought she to herself. "I wonder
what it is. People are about, who ought to be in their beds. If it
continues, I shall ring up the Mother-of-the-maids. Now it has stopped.
I wish I were not so wakeful--how tiresome it is!
"What could induce Isabella to write me that disagreeable letter? I
fancy the Prince of Sulmona had a hand in it. It is very hard, after the
Pope's substantiating my rights as he has done, and bringing me through
with a high hand, that I should be assailed in a fresh quarter. How
sorry Rodomonte would have been! Poor fellow, he loved us both so
dearly! And if ever a step-mother did her duty by a step-daughter, I did
mine by Isabella. But there was too little difference in our ages. She
presumed on my forbearance, and tried to domineer over me. I dare say
many people fancy the life of a rich young widow must needs be very
happy. Some were even stupid enough to think my dear Duke and I could
not be as happy as we seemed. Oh, yes, we were!--though he was forty and
I but thirteen."
"Supposing I had been over-persuaded to have Ippolito, how different
would have been the story of our lives! Happier for him, possibly, but
he may be very well content to be a cardinal. At the same time I have
somehow suspected that if ever any one really valued me for myself, he
did. They all flatter too much. A flattered person is the tool of the
flatterer. It hurts one's mind----
"That noise again! Can it be Caterina snoring? She says she never does:
just as if she could hear herself! Whatever it is, I'll have it inquired
into. Caterina! Caterina! Cynthia! Cynthia!"
At the sound of the Duchess's voice, two of her attendants came running
in from the antechamber. One of them was a withered old woman with a
very benevolent face and thin grey hair fastened at the top of her head
in a little knot about as big as an egg, with a bodkin: the other a
Moorish girl, with large, startled, lustrous eyes, and symmetrical as
one of Calypso's nymphs moulded in bronze. She was in a single white
garment, but had caught up a striped goat's hair haik, which by day
formed the upper part of her attire.
"Did Leila call?" "What will your Vossignoria?"
"I called because I could bear your snoring no longer, Caterina."
"_I_ snore?" repeated Caterina, with a look of injured innocence.
"Vossignoria must surely be mistaken; for I was lying wide awake, with
Cynthia sleeping beside me, as quiet as a lamb."
"You were dreaming that you were awake," said the Duchess. "I have not
once closed my eyes, nor has it been possible--Hark! there is the noise
again!" cried she, excitedly. "What on earth can it be?"
They remained transfixed, with suspended breath, in various attitudes of
surprise and affright; each of them intently listening.
"I hear nothing, Eccellenza," began Caterina.
"There! there!" exclaimed the Duchess.
Cynthia suddenly sprang to one of the open windows, and looked
out--then, clapped her hands to her head, and gave an unearthly yell.
"What is it?" cried Caterina, hastening towards her, and peering forth
into the darkness. Then, shrieking, she exclaimed,----"The pirates are
upon us!"
"_Balzo dal letto._"[1]--The Duchess sprang from her bed, and took one
hasty glance from the window. She could discern a string of turbaned
figures with gleaming scimitars swarming up the walls, and leaping down
on the inner side.
[1] "Come lupi famelici entrarono in Fondi que' barbari,
destandovi tra gli ululati degli abitanti un tumulto indicibile.
Il fremito de' ribaldi assalitori, le grida degli assaliti che
assordavano l' aria, ruppero a Giulia il sonno, e mentre
palpitando e incerta iva pensando qual potesse essere la cagione
di tanto rumore, eccole i pallidi famiglieri col tristo annunzio
che i Turchi scorrevano l' occupata città, e che non vi era
tempo a perdere se bramava salvarsi dalle indegne loro mani.
Balzo dal letto," &c., &c.--Ireneo Affo, _Memorie di tre
Principesse_, &c.
"We are undone!" exclaimed she, desperately. "Caterina! arouse the men!
Cynthia, help me to dress."
Wild sounds were already heard on every side, both in the town and the
castle--alarm-bells ringing, hoarse war-cries, piercing
screams--Hayraddin Barbarossa was upon them!
What a plunder! There was the town, to begin with; then, there was the
castle; and within the castle, the most beautiful and beloved lady in
all Italy! the friend and favourite of popes and princes; a princess
herself, enormously rich! What a ransom!
But no ransom was the object of Hayraddin Barbarossa, the scourge of the
seas. He meant to carry her away captive to Solyman the Magnificent,
Emperor of the Turks. With this purpose, and no less, had Hayraddin been
hovering off the coast with a hundred galleys and two thousand Turks on
board,[2] terrifying the Neapolitans out of their wits at the very
thought of his red beard and red flag--he, who avowed himself "the
friend of the sea, and the foe of all who sailed upon it"--whose very
name was a word of fear from the Straits of Gibraltar to the
Dardanelles![3]
[2] "Piena l' Italia e l' Europa fosse di quanto iva spargendo la
fama intorno le singolare bellezze di Giulia; erane passato
anche il grido ai molli regni dell' Asia. Solimano II.,
Imperadore de' Turchi, non ignorava quanto ella fosse avvenente;
onde giacchè avea guerra coll' Imperador Carlo V., fornito
Ariadene Barbarossa di cento galere, con ciu potesse trascorrere
i mari nostri, e battere le coste de paesi Christiani, gl'
ingiunse che tra le spoglie più rieche, onde carico lo
attendeva, dovesse aver luogo la vagha Signora di Fondi. Fece
plauso al comando il baldanzoso corsaro, che, avido di riportar
gloria, al mare affidosi pien di si audace pensiero,"
&c.--_Idem._
[3] Robertson's "Charles the Fifth."
"They will be upon us directly, Signora," said her trembling,
grey-haired seneschal, who had hastened to her at the first alarm. "Lose
no time in escaping. The pirates will never content themselves with the
town--rely on it, _you_ are their object. We will lower you from the
window--you must then cross the draw-bridge, and pass through the
gallery cut in the rock. It will bring you out on the hill-side, where
Tiberio shall join you with horses--"
"Come, then, Caterina--"
"Alas, Madama, I am too old for jumping out of windows--I will remain to
secrete the jewels, and look after the maids. We will lock ourselves in
the cellars."
"Come then, Cynthia. Be quick."
Cynthia, who was wrapping herself in her haik, looked unwilling, and
said:
"May I not remain with Caterina, Leila?"
"Certainly not. Jump out of window this instant, and then you can help
me down."
The Duchess accelerated her by a slight push, on which she sprang
lightly as a chamois to the ground, which was not far below; and the
Duchess, seeing she came to no harm, called on the saints, and did the
same. Caterina lowered them a lamp, which they covered, and soon they
were in the rocky passage, while the Turks in the distance were howling
like hungry wolves or mad dogs.[4]
[4] "Lupi famelici," "colla rabbia d' affamati cani."
"How cold it is!" complained the Duchess, shivering and drawing closer
the richly furred velvet mantle in which she was enveloped.
"And you gave me no stockings, Cynthia, only slippers. How _could_ you
be so foolish?"
"You must not mind that, Leila, since you are safe," said Cynthia,
bluntly. "Think what horrors are going on in the town. Holy prophet! it
reminds me of the night when my parents fled from the Spaniards!"
"Cynthia, it is very wicked of you to use those heathenish imprecations,
now that I have taken the trouble to have you baptised. Your prophet was
not holy, nor a prophet at all, but a very bad man, as I have told you
several times, and you must not be so benighted any more."
Cynthia's eyes flashed fire, but she held her peace.
"If you call any one holy," continued the Duchess, "it should be the
blessed Virgin and holy saints. You ought to consider it a great mercy
that you have been led to the service of a Christian mistress who cares
for your soul. Don't you feel this?"
"No," said Cynthia, stoutly; "I do not feel grateful that I was torn
from my home and country, and that my father was cut down on his own
doorstep, and my mother dragged along the ground by the hair of her
head. Could _you_ feel grateful, Leila?"
"Not for those things, certainly; but misfortunes are often blessings in
disguise, and the Moors are very wicked people, and--"
"They are doing those very things, just now, to _your_ people," said
Cynthia, expressively, and stretching out her arm towards the town.
"Ah! Heaven forbid!" said the Duchess.
"Heaven does not forbid, though," said Cynthia, sorrowfully, "and I
cannot think why Heaven only looks on."
"Cynthia!" cried the Duchess, suddenly stopping short, and fixing a
piercing look on her, "did _you_ bring these people on us?"
"What people, Leila?"
"These pirates!--these Moors!"
"Take the lamp!" cried Cynthia, thrusting it into her hand, and stamping
passionately. "Kill me if you will, since you can suspect me! Here's a
dagger--I brought it to defend you and myself."
"Nay, but I do not want to suspect you. Put up your dagger, foolish
girl. Who talks about killing?" said the Duchess, shrinking from the
gleaming steel. "Speak but the word and I will believe you; only, as
they are countrymen of yours, and as you so hate the Christians, the
thought just crossed me."
"I'll _never_ speak the word," said Cynthia, stubbornly. "You may kill
me if you will, but I'll _never_ say!"
And with dilated nostrils, quivering lips, and flaming eyes, she strode
on before her mistress. It was not a time or place for the Duchess to
take notice of it--to a woman with a dagger!