Pier Luigi's original intent had been to spend no more than a night at
Pagliano. But when the morrow came, he showed no sign of departing, nor
upon the next day, nor yet upon the next.
A week passed, and still he lingered, seeming to settle more and more in
the stronghold of the Cavalcanti, leaving the business of his Duchy to
his secretary Filarete and to his council, at the head of which, as I
learnt, was my old friend Annibale Caro.
And meanwhile, Cavalcanti, using great discreetness, suffered the Duke's
presence, and gave him and his suite most noble entertainment.
His position was perilous and precarious in the extreme, and it needed
all his strength of character to hold in curb the resentment that boiled
within him to see himself thus preyed upon; and that was not the
worst. The worst was Pier Luigi's ceaseless attentions to Bianca,
the attentions of the satyr for the nymph, a matter in which I think
Cavalcanti suffered little less than did I.
He hoped for the best, content to wait until cause for action should
be forced upon him. And meanwhile that courtly throng took its ease at
Pagliano. The garden that hitherto had been Bianca's own sacred domain,
the garden into which I had never yet dared set foot, was overrun now
by the Duke's gay suite--a cloud of poisonous butterflies. There in the
green, shaded alleys they disported themselves; in the lemon-grove,
in the perfumed rose-garden, by hedges of box and screens of purple
clematis they fluttered.
Bianca sought to keep her chamber in those days, and kept it for as
long on each day as was possible to her. But the Duke, hobbling on
the terrace--for as a consequence of his journey on horseback he had
developed a slight lameness, being all rotten with disease--would grow
irritable at her absence, and insistent upon her presence, hinting that
her retreat was a discourtesy; so that she was forced to come forth
again, and suffer his ponderous attentions and gross flatteries.
And three days later there came another to Pagliano, bidden thither by
the Duke, and this other was none else than my cousin Cosimo, who now
called himself Lord of Mondolfo, having been invested in that tyranny,
as I have said.
On the morning after his arrival we met upon the terrace.
“My saintly cousin!” was his derisive greeting. “And yet another change
in you--out of sackcloth into velvet! The calendar shall know you as St.
Weathercock, I think--or, perhaps, St. Mountebank.”
What followed was equally bitter and sardonic on his part, fiercely and
openly hostile on mine. At my hostility he had smiled cruelly.
“Be content with what is, my strolling saint,” he said, in the tone of
one who gives a warning, “unless you would be back in your hermitage, or
within the walls of some cloister, or even worse. Already have you found
it a troublesome matter to busy yourself with the affairs of the world.
You were destined for sanctity.” He came closer, and grew very fierce.
“Do not put it upon me to make a saint of you by sending you to Heaven.”
“It might end in your own dispatch to Hell,” said I. “Shall we essay
it?”
“Body of God!” he snarled, laughter still lingering on his white face.
“Is this the mood of your holiness at present? What a bloodthirsty brave
are you become! Consider, pray, sir, that if you trouble me I have no
need to do my own office of hangman. There is sufficient against you
to make the Tribunal of the Ruota very busy; there is--can you have
forgotten it?--that little affair at the house of Messer Fifanti.”
I dropped my glance, browbeaten for an instant. Then I looked at him
again, and smiled.
“You are but a poor coward, Messer Cosimo,” said I, “to use a shadow as
a screen. You know that nothing can be proved against me unless Giuliana
speaks, and that she dare not for her own sake. There are witnesses who
will swear that Gambara went to Fifanti's house that night. There is not
one to swear that Gambara did not kill Fifanti ere he came forth
again; and it is the popular belief, for his traffic with Giuliana
is well-known, as it is well-known that she fled with him after the
murder--which, in itself, is evidence of a sort. Your Duke has too great
a respect for the feelings of the populace,” I sneered, “to venture to
outrage them in such a matter. Besides,” I ended, “it is impossible to
incriminate me without incriminating Giuliana and, Messer Pier Luigi
seems, I should say, unwilling to relinquish the lady to the brutalities
of a tribunal.”
“You are greatly daring,” said he, and he was pale now, for in that last
mention of Giuliana, it seemed that I had touched him where he was still
sensitive.
“Daring?” I rejoined. “It is more than I can say for you, Ser Cosimo.
Yours is the coward's fault of caution.”
I thought to spur him. If this failed, I was prepared to strike him, for
my temper was beyond control. That he, standing towards me as he did,
should dare to mock me, was more than I could brook. But at that moment
there spoke a harsh voice just behind me.
“How, sir? What words are these?”
There, very magnificent in his suit of ivory velvet, stood the Duke. He
was leaning heavily upon his cane, and his face was more blotched than
ever, the sunken eyes more sunken.
“Are you seeking to quarrel with the Lord of Mondolfo?” quoth he, and I
saw by his smile that he used my cousin's title as a taunt.
Behind him was Cavalcanti with Bianca leaning upon his arm just as I had
seen her that day when she came with him to Monte Orsaro, save that now
there was a look as of fear in the blue depths of her eyes. A little
on one side there was a group composed of three of the Duke's gentlemen
with Giuliana and another of the ladies, and Giuliana was watching us
with half-veiled eyes.
“My lord,” I answered, very stiff and erect, and giving him back look
for look, something perhaps of the loathing with which he inspired
me imprinted on my face, “my lord, you give yourself idle alarms. Ser
Cosimo is too cautious to embroil himself.”
He limped toward me; leaning heavily upon his stick, and it pleased me
that of a good height though he was, he was forced to look up into my
face.
“There is too much bad Anguissola blood in you,” he said. “Be careful
lest out of our solicitude for you, we should find it well to let our
leech attend you.”
I laughed, looking into his blotched face, considering his lame leg and
all the evil humours in him.
“By my faith, I think it is your excellency needs the attentions of a
leech,” said I, and flung all present into consternation by that answer.
I saw his face turn livid, and I saw the hand shake upon the golden
head of his cane. He was very sensitive upon the score of his foul
infirmities. His eyes grew baleful as he controlled himself. Then he
smiled, displaying a ruin of blackened teeth.
“You had best take care,” he said. “It were a pity to cripple such fine
limbs as yours. But there is a certain matter upon which the Holy Office
might desire to set you some questions. Best be careful, sir, and avoid
disagreements with my captains.”
He turned away. He had had the last word, and had left me cold with
apprehension, yet warmed by the consciousness that in the brief
encounter it was he who had taken the deeper wound.
He bowed before Bianca. “Oh, pardon me,” he said. “I did not dream you
stood so near. Else no such harsh sounds should have offended your fair
ears. As for Messer d'Anguissola...” He shrugged as who would say, “Have
pity on such a boor!”
But her answer, crisp and sudden as come words that are spoken on
impulse or inspiration, dashed his confidence.
“Nothing that he said offended me,” she told him boldly, almost
scornfully.
He flashed me a glance that was full of venom, and I saw Cosimo smile,
whilst Cavalcanti started slightly at such boldness from his meek child.
But the Duke was sufficiently master of himself to bow again.
“Then am I less aggrieved,” said he, and changed the subject. “Shall we
to the bowling lawn?” And his invitation was direct to Bianca, whilst
his eyes passed over her father. Without waiting for their answer,
his question, indeed, amounting to a command, he turned sharply to
my cousin. “Your arm, Cosimo,” said he, and leaning heavily upon his
captain he went down the broad granite steps, followed by the little
knot of courtiers, and, lastly, by Bianca and her father.
As for me, I turned and went indoors, and there was little of the saint
left in me in that hour. All was turmoil in my soul, turmoil and hatred
and anger. Anon to soothe me came the memory of those sweet words that
Bianca had spoken in my defence, and those words emboldened me at last
to seek her out as I had never yet dared in all the time that I had
spent at Pagliano.
I found her that evening, by chance, in the gallery over the courtyard.
She was pacing slowly, having fled thither to avoid that hateful throng
of courtiers. Seeing me she smiled timidly, and her smile gave me what
little further encouragement I needed. I approached, and very earnestly
rendered her my thanks for having championed my cause and supported me
with the express sign of her approval.
She lowered her eyes; her bosom quickened slightly, and the colour ebbed
and flowed in her cheeks.
“You should not thank me,” said she. “What I did was done for justice's
sake.”
“I have been presumptuous,” I answered humbly, “in conceiving that it
might have been for the sake of me.”
“But it was that also,” she answered quickly, fearing perhaps that she
had pained me. “It offended me that the Duke should attempt to browbeat
you. I took pride in you to see you bear yourself so well and return
thrust for thrust.”
“I think your presence must have heartened me,” said I. “No pain could
be so cruel as to seem base or craven in your eyes.”
Again the tell-tale colour showed upon her lovely cheek. She began to
pace slowly down the gallery, and I beside her. Presently she spoke
again.
“And yet,” she said, “I would have you cautious. Do not wantonly affront
the Duke, for he is very powerful.”
“I have little left to lose,” said I.
“You have your life,” said she.
“A life which I have so much misused that it must ever cry out to me in
reproach.”
She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again.
Thus we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was
placed, with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather. She sank to
it with a little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and
slightly over her. And now I grew strangely bold.
“Set me some penance,” I cried, “that shall make me worthy.”
Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
“A penance?” quoth she. “I do not understand.”
“All my life,” I explained, “has been a vain striving after something
that eluded me. Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned
and rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro,
seeking by penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had
succumbed. That shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had
done, the signs I believed I had received, were turned to mockery. It
was not there that I should save myself. One night I was told so in a
vision.”
She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell
silent, staring back at her.
“You knew!” I cried.
Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as
never yet they had met it. She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time
openly to consider me.
“I know now,” she breathed.
“What do you know?” My voice was tense with excitement.
“What was your vision?” she rejoined.
“Have I not told you? There appeared to me one who called me back to the
world; who assured me that there I should best serve God; who filled me
with the conviction that she needed me. She addressed me by name, and
spoke of a place of which I had never heard until that hour, but which
to-day I know.”
“And you? And you?” she asked. “What answer did you make?”
“I called her by name, although until that hour I did not know it.”
She bowed her head. Emotion set her all a-tremble.
“It is what I have so often wondered,” she confessed, scarce above a
whisper. “And it is true--as true as it is strange!”
“True?” I echoed. “It was the only true miracle in that place of false
ones, and it was so clear a call of destiny that it decided me to return
to the world which I had abandoned. And yet I have since wondered why.
Here there seems to be no place for me any more than there was yonder.
I am devout again with a worldly devotion now, yet with a devotion that
must be Heaven-inspired, so pure and sweet it is. It has shut out from
me all the foulness of that past; and yet I am unworthy. And that is why
I cry to you to set me some penance ere I can make my prayer.”
She could not understand me, nor did she. We were not as ordinary
lovers. We were not as man and maid who, meeting and being drawn each to
the other, fence and trifle in a pretty game of dalliance until the maid
opines that the appearances are safe, and that, her resistance having
been of a seemly length, she may now make the ardently desired surrender
with all war's honours. Nothing of that was in our wooing, a wooing
which seemed to us, now that we spoke of it, to have been done when we
had scarcely met, done in the vision that I had of her, and the vision
that she had of me.
With averted eyes she set me now a question.
“Madonna Giuliana used you with a certain freedom on her arrival, and
I have since heard your name coupled with her own by the Duke's ladies.
But I have asked no questions of them. I know how false can be the
tongues of courtly folk. I ask it now of you. What is or was this
Madonna Giuliana to you?”
“She was,” I answered bitterly, “and God pity me that I must say it to
you--she was to me what Circe was to the followers of Ulysses.”
She made a little moan, and I saw her clasp her hands in her lap; and
the sound and sight filled me with sorrow and despair. She must know.
Better that the knowledge should stand between us as a barrier which
both could see than that it should remain visible only to the eyes of my
own soul, to daunt me.
“O Bianca! Forgive me!” I cried. “I did not know! I did not know! I
was a poor fool reared in seclusion and ripened thus for the first
temptation that should touch me. That is what on Monte Orsaro I sought
to expiate, that I might be worthy of the shrine I guarded then. That
is what I would expiate now that I might be worthy of the shrine whose
guardian I would become, the shrine at which I worship now.”
I was bending very low above her little brown head, in which the threads
of the gold coif-net gleamed in the fading light.
“If I had but had my vision sooner,” I murmured, “how easy it would have
been! Can you find mercy for me in your gentle heart? Can you forgive
me, Bianca?
“O Agostino,” she answered very sadly, and the sound of my name from her
lips, coming so naturally and easily, thrilled me like the sound of the
mystic music of Monte Orsaro. “What shall I answer you? I cannot now.
Give me leisure to think. My mind is all benumbed. You have hurt me so!”
“Me miserable!” I cried.
“I had believed you one who erred through excess of holiness.”
“Whereas I am one who attempted holiness through excess of error.”
“I had believed you so, so...O Agostino!” It was a little wail of pain.
“Set me a penance,” I implored her.
“What penance can I set you? Will any penance restore to me my shattered
faith?”
I groaned miserably and covered my face with my hands. It seemed that I
was indeed come to the end of all my hopes; that the world was become as
much a mockery to me as had been the hermitage; that the one was to end
for me upon the discovery of a fraud, as had the other ended--with the
difference that in this case the fraud was in myself.
It seemed, indeed, that our first communion must be our last. Ever since
she had seen me step into that gold-and-purple dining-room at Pagliano,
the incarnation of her vision, as she was the incarnation of mine,
Bianca must have waited confidently for this hour, knowing that it was
foreordained to come. Bitterness and disillusion were all that it had
brought her.
And then, ere more could be said, a thin, flute-like voice hissed down
the vaulted gallery:
“Madonna Bianca! To hide your beauty from our hungry eyes. To quench the
light by which we guide our footsteps. To banish from us the happiness
and joy of your presence! Unkind, unkind!”
It was the Duke. In his white velvet suit he looked almost ghostly in
the deepening twilight. He hobbled towards us, his stick tapping the
black-and-white squares of the marble floor. He halted before her, and
she put aside her emotion, donned a worldly mask, and rose to meet him.
Then he looked at me, and his brooding eyes seemed to scan my face.
“Why! It is Ser Agostino, Lord of Nothing,” he sneered, and down the
gallery rang the laugh of my cousin Cosimo, and there came, too, a
ripple of other voices.
Whether to save me from friction with those steely gentlemen who aimed
at grinding me to powder, whether from other motives, Bianca set her
finger-tips upon the Duke's white sleeve and moved away with him.
I leaned against the balustrade all numb, watching them depart. I saw
Cosimo come upon her other side and lean over her as he moved, so slim
and graceful, beside her own slight, graceful figure. Then I sank to the
cushions of the seat she had vacated, and stayed there with my misery
until the night had closed about the place, and the white marble pillars
looked ghostly and unreal.