Early the next morning, while Violante was still in her room, a letter
addressed to her came by the Post. The direction was in a strange hand.
She opened it, and read in Italian what is thus translated:
"I would gladly see you, but I can not call openly at the house in
which you live. Perhaps I may have it in my power to arrange family
dissensions--to repair any wrongs your father may have sustained.
Perhaps I may be enabled to render yourself an essential service. But
for all this, it is necessary that we should meet, and confer frankly.
Meanwhile time presses--delay is forbidden. Will you meet me, an
hour after noon, in the lane, just outside the private gate of your
gardens. I shall be alone; and you can not fear to meet one of your
own sex, and a kinswoman. Ah, I so desire to see you! Come, I beseech
you.
BEATRICE."
Violante read, and her decision was taken. She was naturally fearless,
and there was little that she would not have braved for the chance
of serving her father. And now all peril seemed slight in comparison
with that which awaited her in Randal's suit, backed by her father's
approval. Randal had said that Madame di Negra alone could aid her in
escape from himself. Harley had said that Madame di Negra had generous
qualities; and who but Madame di Negra would write herself a kinswoman,
and sign herself "Beatrice?"
A little before the appointed hour, she stole unobserved through
the trees, opened the little gate, and found herself in the quiet
solitary lane. In a few minutes, a female figure came up, with a quick
light step; and, throwing aside her vail, said, with a sort of wild,
suppressed energy, "It is you! I was truly told. Beautiful!--beautiful!
And, oh! what youth and what bloom!"
The voice dropped mournfully; and Violante, surprised by the tone, and
blushing under the praise, remained a moment silent; then she said,
with some hesitation--
"You are, I presume, the Marchesa di Negra? And I have heard of you
enough to induce me to trust you."
"Of me! From whom?" asked Beatrice, almost fiercely.
"From Mr. Leslie, and--and--"
"Go on--why falter?"
"From Lord L'Estrange."
"From no one else?"
"Not that I remember."
Beatrice sighed heavily, and let fall her vail. Some foot-passengers
now came up the lane; and seeing two ladies, of mien so remarkable,
turned round, and gazed curiously.
"We can not talk here," said Beatrice impatiently; "and I have so much
to say--so much to know. Trust me yet more; it is for yourself I speak.
My carriage waits yonder. Come home with me--I will not detain you an
hour; and I will bring you back."
This proposition startled Violante. She retreated toward the gate, with
a gesture of dissent. Beatrice laid her hand on the girl's arm, and
again lifting her vail, gazed at her with a look, half of scorn, half
of admiration.
"I, too, would once have recoiled from one step beyond the formal line
by which the world divides liberty from woman. Now--see how bold I am.
Child, child, do not trifle with your destiny. You may never again
have the same occasion offered to you. It is not only to meet you that
I am here; I must know something of you--something of your heart. Why
shrink?--is not the heart pure?"
Violante made no answer; but her smile, so sweet and so lofty, humbled
the questioner it rebuked.
"I may restore to Italy your father," said Beatrice, with an altered
voice. "Come!"
Violante approached, but still hesitatingly.
"Not by union with your brother?"
"You dread that so much, then?"
"Dread it? No! Why should I dread what is in my power to reject. But if
you can really restore my father, and by nobler means, you may save me
for--"
Violante stopped abruptly; the Marchesa's eyes sparkled.
"Save you for--ah! I can guess what you leave unsaid. But come,
come--more strangers--see; you shall tell me all at my own house. And
if you can make one sacrifice, why, I will save you all else. Come, or
farewell forever!"
Violante placed her hand in Beatrice's, with a frank confidence that
brought the accusing blood into the Marchesa's cheek.
"We are women both," said Violante; "we descend from the same noble
house; we have knelt alike to the same Virgin Mother; why should I not
believe and trust you?"
"Why not?" muttered Beatrice feebly; and she moved on, with her head
bowed on her breast, and all the pride of her step was gone.
They reached a carriage that stood by the angle of the road. Beatrice
spake a word apart to the driver, who was an Italian, in the pay of the
Count the man nodded, and opened the carriage door. The ladies entered.
Beatrice pulled down the blinds; the man remounted his box, and drove
on rapidly.
Beatrice, leaning back, groaned aloud. Violante drew nearer to her
side. "Are you in pain?" said she, with her tender, melodious voice;
"or can I serve you as you would serve me?"
"Child, give me your hand, and be silent while I look at you. Was I
ever so fair as this? Never! And what deeps--what deeps roll between
her and me!"
She said this as of some one absent, and again sank into silence; but
continued still to gaze on Violante, whose eyes, vailed by their long
fringes, drooped beneath the gaze.
Suddenly Beatrice started, exclaiming, "No, it shall not be!" and
placed her hand on the check-string.
"What shall not be?" asked Violante, surprised by the cry and the
action. Beatrice paused--her breast heaved visibly under her dress.
"Stay," she said, slowly. "As you say, we are both women of the same
noble house; you would reject the suit of my brother, yet you have
seen him; his the form to please the eye--his the arts that allure the
fancy. He offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall.
If I could remove the objections which your father entertains--prove
that the Count has less wronged him than he deems, would you still
reject the rank, and the wealth, and the hand of Giulio Franzini?"
"Oh, yes, yes, were his hand a king's!"
"Still, then, as woman to woman--both, as you say, akin, and sprung
from the same lineage--still, then, answer me--answer me, for you speak
to one who has loved--Is it not that you love another? Speak."
"I do not know. Nay, not love--it was a romance; it is a thing
impossible. Do not question--I can not answer." And the broken words
were choked by sudden tears.
Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her vail, and
withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the
touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed."
Both were now long silent--Violante with great difficulty recovering
from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly
across her breast.
Meanwhile the carriage had entered London--it passed the quarter in
which Madame di Negra's house was situated--it rolled fast over a
bridge--it whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles
of lanes, with tall, blank, dreary houses on either side. On it went,
and on, till Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she
said, drawing up the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange ignoble
suburb. "I shall be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech
you."
"We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to
avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together--perhaps
by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of--of the lover whom
you rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible'--yes, it is
impossible!"
Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head.
"Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised! How
are you to serve my father--how restore him to his country? This is
what you promised."
"If you consent to one sacrifice, I will fulfill that promise. We are
arrived."
The carriage stopped before a tall dull house, divided from other
houses by a high wall that appeared to inclose a yard, and standing
at the end of a narrow lane, which was bounded on the one side by the
Thames. In that quarter the river was crowded with gloomy, dark-looking
vessels and craft, all lying lifeless under the wintry sky.
The driver dismounted and rang the bell. Two swarthy Italian faces
presented themselves at the threshold.
Beatrice descended lightly, and gave her hand to Violante. "Now, here
we shall be secure," said she; "and here a few minutes may suffice to
decide your fate."
As the door closed on Violante--who, now waking to suspicion, to alarm,
looked fearfully round the dark and dismal hall--Beatrice turned; "Let
the carriage wait."
The Italian who received the order bowed and smiled; but when the two
ladies had ascended the stairs, he re-opened the street-door and said
to the driver, "Back to the Count, and say 'all is safe.'"
The carriage drove off. The man who had given this order barred and
locked the door, and, taking with him the huge key, plunged into the
mystic recesses of the basement and disappeared. The hall, thus left
solitary, had the grim aspect of a prison; the strong door sheeted with
iron--the rugged stone stairs, lighted by a high window grimed with the
dust of years, and jealously barred--and the walls themselves abutting
out rudely here and there, as if against violence even from within.