When the Senator Bernardini had first made known to his stately
patrician Mother his acceptance of the appointment to Cyprus, she had
met him with surprise and keen disappointment.
"There is surely some great error," she said; "for I had it in
confidence that the Embassy to France hath been offered thee by the
Senate."
He confessed as much.
"Thou wilt revise thy decision: I would gladly see thee wear thy
Father's honors. Thou hast the gift of statesmanship."
He waited to choose his words, for her tone betrayed more than her
speech, and he grieved to thwart her ambitions for him.
"So may it fit me the better for the Cyprian post," he answered with an
attempt at playfulness.
"Thou wilt verily give up this Embassy to France to go with the Caterina
to her new land! There is some reason of which thou sayest naught--else
were it hard to comprehend thy choice. We are but two, Aluisi; may not
thy mother hold thy confidence?"
For answer he raised her hand to his lips, smiling upon her. Her brow
cleared.
"It is not that the little cousin hath touched thy heart?" she
questioned half seriously--"thou who art known as gracious for all and
tender for none! I have not this to bear for thee--now that the marriage
which thy Father would have favored is no longer possible? Then France
were surely wiser for thee--the Fates are kind."
"Nay, nay," he answered frankly--"have no fear. When I set sail from
Venetia for my long voyage, the Caterina was still a child. And when,
returning, I found her grown a charming maid, she was already set apart
from all such dreaming for any honorable knight of Venice. Thou dost not
guess the spell that holdeth me?"
"It is not one of her fair maids of honor who go with her to her court
of Cyprus?"
"Nay, Madre carissima; thou art still before all others with thy wayward
son."
"Yet my wish for thee--of France--thou dost pass by," she interrupted
eagerly.
"It is but for duty to the Casa Cornaro,--in which thou wouldst be last
to see me fail, dear Lady of Venice!"
She laid her hand upon his arm as if she would constrain him.
"Tell me," she urged.
"Mother, when thy name and mine shall have been forgotten, _one_ name of
the Casa Cornaro shall stand out never to be lost--since Fortune doth
weave it into history. For honor to our house, we will not fail our
Caterina."
"And thou?"
"As thou wouldst have me--thou, my Mother--than whom among the Cornari
are none found prouder--I have sworn as solemnly as any knight may take
his vow,--were it even in Crusade--to spend myself in service of the
little Queen, my cousin--as in that far land there may be need."
But for the Lady of the Bernardini--Venetian to her heart's core--the
island of Cyprus had little charm; she had dreamed of a brilliant career
for her only son which should open to him the best that Venice could
give--and she was not satisfied.
"There is no fault with that dear child," she said; "and as thy
bride--if this had been--I could have loved her well. But if thy
fortunes need be bound with hers--and all thine honors for which thou
art so meet, and with which thy Venice would fain endow thee, must be
surrendered for her sake,--'twere pity that this marriage which thy
Father willed, went not forward."
"Sweet Mother--the 'might-have-beens' make faincants of men. It is not
love--but duty that calleth me. _There is no choice._ Where is thine
honorable teaching?"
"Bethink thee, Aluisi, of this post of dignity in France--a place of
power--of service to thy country. How sayest thou 'there is no choice'?"
"Mother--when our stars have ordered otherwise--there is no more to it
than that--why then--if men lack strength to bend their wills to meet
their destiny,--it is not as they will,--it is not as their honor
wills--but far otherwise. And theirs the fault."
She looked up into his noble face as he bent over her--a face not often
yielded so fully to her gaze--dear as this widowed mother and her son
were to each other, and intimate in friendship; and as she looked a calm
fell upon her and she saw strength, truth, valor, judgment--the soul of
the man like a rock beneath the light play of his speech.
She no longer willed to oppose his choice. She put up her hand and drew
him down beside her on the couch.
"There will be much to think of," she said after a long silence; "thine
interests in Venice will be hard to leave. Why--if some of Caterina's
house must escort her and abide with her--why not her brother Zorzi? Who
should be fitter in her defense?"
"Zorzi is but a youth--less in years than her own. How should she lean
on such a boy?"
"Aluisi--thou hast some fear which thou hast not spoken."
He was silent though she waited. How might he declare the bitter need of
watchfulness, yet not betray the knowledge gotten in those secret
councils of the Republic!
"_Madre mia_," he said at last, when she had reminded him of her
question. "Without cause I had made no vow. Canst thou not trust thy
knight? And of my fealty, so solemnly sworn, Caterina knoweth naught. It
is for me and thee alone--_and least of all for the ear of Venice_. But
thou knowest--if it were no more than that the way of a crown be not
easy for a young and guileless maid--some one of her own should be with
her in that strange land; and he should be wise in counsel."
"As thou?--who dost so qualify thyself?" she asked with a pitiful
attempt to rally him--for her heart was sore. "What shall I do without
thee--Aluisi!" Her voice had suddenly broken in yearning. It was not
often that such emotion escaped her. He folded her hand more closely as
they sat on in the silence, in the falling twilight, and his eyes
wandered down the length of the splendid ancestral hall, while his
resolve strengthened within him--the knights and ladies of the house of
Cornaro for centuries back leaning to him out of the quaint carving of
their time-dimmed frames--fading from him, like ghosts, into the gloom
of the distant corners, yet holding him with a strange, vital
fascination--for it was much to leave. The very tapestries rustled with
the legends of the Cornelii of long, long ago, on the shores of the Rivo
Alto, before the story of Venice had won its honored place in the
chronicles of nations--yet not the less for their indistinguishable
outlines and mythical color were they woven into the proud consciousness
of the duty the Cornari owed their own.
Memories of the state his Mother had held here rose to meet
him--memories of his Father, who had been a power in Venice. How could
he ask the Lady of the Bernardini, with her whitening hair, to leave it
all for Cyprus? Yet that was in his thought. He could not frame the
words; it was too much to ask--he must leave it to come from her.
"Is thy fear not to be spoken?" she asked at last. "And must we accept
it for the Caterina--who is very fair and tender?"
"It is the ways of Cyprus that I fear," he answered quickly; "and of
that strange people--a blending of half-pagan races with the blood of
France and Greece. But, Madre mia--there must be no echoes from the
Council-Chamber--none of our talk beyond thine own discreet hearing--it
would but harm her. And for _acceptance_--'must we _accept_ it for the
Caterina?'--thou dost ask--it is an empty word! The will of Venice is
_set_ to do this thing."
"Yet our cousin Marco--the child's own father--goeth not heavily; he
hath no fear."
"He is mad with the glory of it--after Venice's own temper."
There had been some further talk--not over-much dwelling on vain
regrets--and then the Lady of the Bernardini had asked,
half-reluctantly:
"How if some Lady of the Cornari went with her?--I--having no daughter
of my own--and loving her well? And--thou and I need not be parted."
"I dared not ask it of thee," he cried fervently--"for it is much. I
dared not tell thee of the Senate's wish to name thee chief Lady of
Caterina's Court."
"The court of the child! The little Caterina!" she exclaimed
impetuously, rising and taking a few steps away from him with the
irresistible impulse of offended dignity.
"I was bidden to lay their desire before thee--if it should be also of
thy will, my Mother; it was not a command," he hastened to assure her.
But she had already conquered herself--being strong as proud, and prompt
in decision, but ruled above all by her deep affections, and she came
back to his side before he had found words with which to propitiate her.
"It was strange to me," she said, "but Venice would be more strange
without my boy. Let us go together."
"Thou canst verily bear to leave it all?" he asked when he could trust
himself to speak.
Her eyes followed the direction of his motion around the vast hall, then
came back to rest upon his face.
"The past is ours," she said, "but not to make us weak. Thy
'might-have-beens' are not less wise for women than for men. I have only
thee."
"San Marco atone to thee for thy sacrifice," he cried devoutly.