THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO
There was no concealment as to Laura's object in making request for the
services of Beppo. She herself knew it to be obvious that she intended
to probe and cross-examine the man, and in her wilfulness she chose to
be obtuse to opinion. She did not even blush to lean a secret ear above
the stairs that she might judge, by the tones of Vittoria's voice upon
her giving Beppo the order to wait, whether she was at the same time
conveying a hint for guardedness. But Vittoria said not a word: it was
Ammiani who gave the order. 'I am despicable in distrusting her for
a single second,' said Laura. That did not the less encourage her to
question Beppo rigorously forthwith; and as she was not to be deceived
by an Italian's affectation of simplicity, she let him answer two or
three times like a plain fool, and then abruptly accused him of standing
prepared with these answers. Beppo, within his own bosom, immediately
ascribed to his sagacious instinct the mere spirit of opposition and
dislike to serve any one save his own young mistress which had caused
him to irritate the signora and be on his guard. He proffered a candid
admission of the truth of the charge; adding, that he stood likewise
prepared with an unlimited number of statements. 'Questions, illustrious
signora, invariably put me on the defensive, and seem to cry for a
return thrust; and this I account for by the fact that my mother--the
blessed little woman now among the Saints!--was questioned, brows and
heels, by a ferruginously--faced old judge at the momentous period when
she carried me. So that, a question--and I show point; but ask me for a
statement, and, ah, signora!' Beppo delivered a sweep of the arm, as to
indicate the spontaneous flow of his tongue.
'I think,' said Laura, 'you have been a soldier, and a serving-man.'
'And a scene-shifter, most noble signora, at La Scala.'
'You accompanied the Signor Mertyrio to England when he was wounded?'
'I did.'
'And there you beheld the Signorina Vittoria, who was then bearing the
name of Emilia Belloni?'
'Which name she changed on her arrival in Italy, illustrious signora,
for that of Vittoria Campa--“sull' campo dells gloria”--ah! ah!--her own
name being an attraction to the blow-flies in her own country. All this
is true.'
'It should be a comfort to you! The Signor Mertyrio...'
Beppo writhed his person at the continuance of the questionings, and
obtaining a pause, he rushed into his statement: 'The Signor Mertyrio
was well, and on the point of visiting Italy, and quitting the
wave-embraced island of fog, of beer, of moist winds, and much money,
and much kindness, where great hearts grew. The signorina corresponded
with him, and with him only.'
'You know that, and will swear to it?' Laura exclaimed.
Beppo thereby receiving the cue he had commenced beating for, swore to
its truth profoundly, and straightway directed his statement to prove
that his mistress had not been politically (or amorously, if the
suspicion aimed at her in those softer regions) indiscreet or blameable
in any of her actions. The signorina, he said, never went out from her
abode without the companionship of her meritorious mother and his own
most humble attendance. He, Beppo, had a master and a mistress, the
Signor Mertyrio and the Signorina Vittoria. She saw no foreigners:
though--a curious thing!--he had seen her when the English language was
talked in her neighbourhood; and she had a love for that language: it
made her face play in smiles like an infant's after it has had suck and
is full;--the sort of look you perceive when one is dreaming and hears
music. She did not speak to foreigners. She did not care to go to
foreign cities, but loved Milan, and lived in it free and happy as
an earwig in a ripe apricot. The circumvallation of Milan gave her
elbow-room enough, owing to the absence of forts all round--'which knock
one's funny-bone in Verona, signora.' Beppo presented a pure smile upon
a simple bow for acceptance. 'The air of Milan,' he went on, with less
confidence under Laura's steady gaze, and therefore more forcing of his
candour--'the sweet air of Milan gave her a deep chestful, so that she
could hold her note as long as five lengths of a fiddle-bow:--by the
body of Sant' Ambrogio, it was true!' Beppo stretched out his arm,
and chopped his hand edgeways five testificatory times on the
shoulder-ridge. 'Ay, a hawk might fly from St. Luke's head (on the
Duomo) to the stone on San Primo over Como, while the signorina held
on her note! You listened, you gasped--you thought of a poet in his
dungeon, and suddenly, behold, his chains are struck off!--you
thought of a gold-shelled tortoise making his pilgrimage to a beatific
shrine!--you thought--you knew not what you thought!'
Here Beppo sank into a short silence of ecstasy, and wakening from it,
as with an ardent liveliness: 'The signora has heard her sing? How to
describe it! Tomorrow night will be a feast for Milan.'
'You think that the dilettanti of Milan will have a delight to-morrow
night?' said Laura; but seeing that the man's keen ear had caught note
of the ironic reptile under the flower, and unwilling to lose further
time, she interdicted his reply.
'Beppo, my good friend, you are a complete Italian--you waste
your cleverness. You will gratify me by remembering that I am your
countrywoman. I have already done you a similar favour by allowing you
to air your utmost ingenuity. The reflection that it has been to no
purpose will neither scare you nor instruct you. Of that I am quite
assured. I speak solely to suit the present occasion. Now, don't seek
to elude me. If you are a snake with friends as well as enemies, you are
nothing but a snake. I ask you--you are not compelled to answer, but
I forbid you to lie--has your mistress seen, or conversed and had
correspondence with any one receiving the Tedeschi's gold, man or woman?
Can any one, man or woman, call her a traitress?'
'Not twice!' thundered Beppo, with a furrowed red forehead.
There was a noble look about the fellow as he stood with stiff legs in
a posture, frowning--theatrical, but noble also; partly the look of a
Figaro defending his honour in extremity, yet much like a statue of a
French Marshal of the Empire.
'That will do,' said Laura, rising. She was about to leave him, when
the Duchess of Graatli's chasseur was ushered in, bearing a missive from
Amalia, her friend. She opened it and read:--
'BEST BELOVED,--Am I soon to be reminded bitterly that there is a
river of steel between my heart and me?
'Fail not in coming to-night. Your new Bulbul is in danger. The
silly thing must have been reading Roman history. Say not no! It
intoxicates you all. I watch over her for my Laura's sake: a
thousand kisses I shower on you, dark delicious soul that you are!
Are you not my pine-grove leading to the evening star? Come, that
we may consult how to spirit her away during her season of peril.
Gulfs do not close over little female madcaps, my Laura; so we must
not let her take the leap. Enter the salle when you arrive: pass
down it once and return upon your steps; then to my boudoir. My
maid Aennchen will conduct you. Addio. Tell this messenger that
you come. Laura mine, I am for ever thy
'AMALIA.'
Laura signalled to the chasseur that her answer was affirmative. As he
was retiring, his black-plumed hat struck against Beppo, who thrust
him aside and gave the hat a dexterous kick, all the while keeping a
decorous front toward the signora. She stood meditating. The enraged
chasseur mumbled a word or two for Beppo's ear, in execrable Italian,
and went. Beppo then commenced bowing half toward the doorway, and tried
to shoot through, out of sight and away, in a final droop of excessive
servility, but the signora stopped him, telling him to consider himself
her servant until the morning; at which he manifested a surprising
readiness, indicative of nothing short of personal devotion, and
remained for two minutes after she had quitted the room. So much time
having elapsed, he ran bounding down the stairs and found the hall-door
locked, and that he was a prisoner during the signora's pleasure.
The discovery that he was mastered by superior cunning, instead of
disconcerting, quieted him wonderfully; so he put by the resources of
his ingenuity for the next opportunity, and returned stealthily to his
starting-point, where the signora found him awaiting her with composure.
The man was in mortal terror lest he might be held guilty of a trust
betrayed, in leaving his mistress for an hour, even in obedience to her
command, at this crisis: but it was not in his nature to state the case
openly to the signora, whom he knew to be his mistress's friend, or to
think of practising other than shrewd evasion to accomplish his duty and
satisfy his conscience.
Laura said, without smiling, 'The street-door opens with a key,' and
she placed the key in his hand, also her fan to carry. Once out of the
house, she was sure that he would not forsake his immediate charge of
the fan: she walked on, heavily veiled, confident of his following. The
Duchess of Graatli's house neighboured the Corso Francesco; numerous
carriages were disburdening their freights of fair guests, and now and
then an Austrian officer in full uniform ran up the steps, glittering
under the lamps. 'I go in among them,' thought Laura. It rejoiced her
that she had come on foot. Forgetting Beppo, and her black fan, as no
Italian woman would have done but she who paced in an acute quivering of
the anguish of hopeless remembrances and hopeless thirst of vengeance,
she suffered herself to be conducted in the midst of the guests, and
shuddered like one who has taken a fever-chill as she fulfilled the
duchess's directions; she passed down the length of the saloon, through
a light of visages that were not human to her sensations.
Meantime Beppo, oppressed by his custody of the fan, and expecting that
most serviceable lady's instrument to be sent for at any minute, stood
among a strange body of semi-feudal retainers below, where he was soon
singled out by the duchess's chasseur, a Styrian, who, masking his fury
under jest, in the South-German manner, endeavoured to lead him up to
an altercation. But Beppo was much too supple to be entrapped. He
apologized for any possible offences that he might have committed,
assuring the chasseur that he considered one hat as good as another,
and some hats better than others: in proof of extreme cordiality, he
accepted the task of repeating the chasseur's name, which was 'Jacob
Baumwalder Feckelwitz,' a tolerable mouthful for an Italian; and it was
with remarkable delicacy that Beppo contrived to take upon himself the
whole ridicule of his vile pronunciation of the unwieldy name. Jacob
Baumwalder Feckelwitz offered him beer to refresh him after the effort.
While Beppo was drinking, he seized the fan. 'Good; good; a thousand
thanks,' said Beppo, relinquishing it; 'convey it aloft, I beseech you.'
He displayed such alacrity and lightness of limb at getting rid of it,
that Jacob thrust it between the buttons of his shirtfront, returning
it to his possession by that aperture. Beppo's head sank. A handful of
black lace and cedarwood chained him to the spot! He entreated the men
in livery to take the fan upstairs and deliver it to the Signora Laura
Piaveni; but they, being advised by Jacob, refused. 'Go yourself,'
said Jacob, laughing, and little prepared to see the victim, on whom he
thought that for another hour at least he had got his great paw firmly,
take him at his word. Beppo sprang into the hall and up the stairs. The
duchess's maid, ivory-faced Aennchen, was flying past him. She saw a
very taking dark countenance making eyes at her, leaned her ear shyly,
and pretending to understand all that was said by the rapid foreign
tongue, acted from the suggestion of the sole thing which she did
understand. Beppo had mentioned the name of the Signora Piaveni. 'This
way,' she indicated with her finger, supposing that of course he wanted
to see the signora very urgently.
Beppo tried hard to get her to carry the fan; but she lifted her fingers
in a perfect Susannah horror of it, though still bidding him to follow.
Naturally she did not go fast through the dark passages, where the
game of the fan was once more played out, and with accompaniments. The
accompaniments she objected to no further than a fish is agitated in
escaping from the hook; but 'Nein, nein!' in her own language, and 'No,
no!' in his, burst from her lips whenever he attempted to transfer the
fan to her keeping. 'These white women are most wonderful!' thought
Beppo, ready to stagger between perplexity and impatience.
'There; in there!' said Aennchen, pointing to a light that came
through the folds of a curtain. Beppo kissed her fingers as they tugged
unreluctantly in his clutch, and knew by a little pause that the case
was hopeful for higher privileges. What to do? He had not an instant
to spare; yet he dared not offend a woman's vanity. He gave an ecstatic
pressure of her hand upon his breastbone, to let her be sure she was
adored, albeit not embraced. After this act of prudence he went toward
the curtain, while the fair Austrian soubrette flew on her previous
errand.
It was enough that Beppo found himself in a dark antechamber for him to
be instantly scrupulous in his footing and breathing. As he touched the
curtain, a door opened on the other side of the interior, and a tender
gabble of fresh feminine voices broke the stillness and ran on like a
brook coming from leaps to a level, and again leaping and making noise
of joy. The Duchess of Graatli had clasped the Signora Laura's two hands
and drawn her to an ottoman, and between kissings and warmer claspings,
was questioning of the little ones, Giacomo and her goddaughter Amalia.
'When, when did I see you last?' she exclaimed. 'Oh! not since we met
that morning to lay our immortelles upon his tomb. My soul's sister!
kiss me, remembering it. I saw you in the gateway--it seemed to me,
as in a vision, that we had both had one warning to come for him, and
knock, and the door would be opened, and our beloved would come forth!
That was many days back. It is to me like a day locked up forever in a
casket of pearl. Was it not an unstained morning, my own! If I weep, it
is with pleasure. But,' she added with precipitation, 'weeping of any
kind will not do for these eyelids of mine.' And drawing forth a tiny
gold-framed pocket-mirror she perceived convincingly that it would not
do.
'They will think it is for the absence of my husband,' she said, as only
a woman can say it who deplores nothing so little as that.
'When does he return from Vienna?' Laura inquired in the fallen voice of
her thoughtfulness.
'I receive two couriers a week; I know not any more, my Laura. I believe
he is pushing some connubial complaint against me at the Court. We have
been married seventeen months. I submitted to the marriage because I
could get no proper freedom without, and now I am expected to abstain
from the very thing I sacrificed myself to get! Can he hear that in
Vienna?' She snapped her fingers. 'If not, let him come and behold it in
Milan. Besides, he is harmless. The Archduchess is all ears for the very
man of whom he is jealous. This is my reply: You told me to marry:
I obeyed. My heart 's in the earth, and I must have distractions. My
present distraction is De Pyrmont, a good Catholic and a good Austrian
soldier, though a Frenchman. I grieve to say--it's horrible--that it
sometimes tickles me when I reflect that De Pyrmont is keen with the
sword. But remember, Laura, it was not until after our marriage my
husband told me he could have saved Giacomo by the lifting of a finger.
Away with the man!--if it amuses me to punish him, I do so.'
The duchess kissed Laura's cheek, and continued:--'Now to the point
where we stand enemies! I am for Austria, you are for Italy. Good. But I
am always for Laura. So, there's a river between us and a bridge across
it. My darling, do you know that we are much too strong for you, if you
mean anything serious tomorrow night?'
'Are you?' Laura said calmly.
'I know, you see, that something is meant to happen to-morrow night.'
Laura said, 'Do you?'
'We have positive evidence of it. More than that: Your Vittoria--but
do you care to have her warned? She will certainly find herself in a
pitfall if she insists on carrying out her design. Tell me, do you
care to have her warned and shielded? A year of fortress-life is not
agreeable, is not beneficial for the voice. Speak, my Laura.'
Laura looked up in the face of her friend mildly with her large dark
eyes, replying, 'Do you think of sending Major de Pyrmont to her to warn
her?'
'Are you not wicked?' cried the duchess, feeling that she blushed, and
that Laura had thrown her off the straight road of her interrogation.
'But, play cards with open hands, my darling, to-night. Look:--She is in
danger. I know it; so do you. She will be imprisoned perhaps before she
steps on the boards--who knows? Now, I--are not my very dreams all sworn
in a regiment to serve my Laura?--I have a scheme. Truth, it is
hardly mine. It belongs to the Greek, the Signor Antonio Pericles
Agriolopoulos. It is simply'--the duchess dropped her voice out of
Beppo's hearing--'a scheme to rescue her: speed her away to my chateau
near Meran in Tyrol.' 'Tyrol' was heard by Beppo. In his frenzy at the
loss of the context he indulged in a yawn, and a grimace, and a dance of
disgust all in one; which lost him the next sentence likewise. 'There
we purpose keeping her till all is quiet and her revolutionary fever
has passed. Have you heard of this Signor Antonio? He could buy up the
kingdom of Greece, all Tyrol, half Lombardy. The man has a passion for
your Vittoria; for her voice solely, I believe. He is considered, no
doubt truly, a great connoisseur. He could have a passion for nothing
else, or alas!' (the duchess shook her head with doleful drollery)
'would he insist on written securities and mortgages of my private
property when he lends me money? How different the world is from the
romances, my Laura! But for De Pyrmont, I might fancy my smile was
really incapable of ransoming an empire; I mean an emperor. Speak; the
man is waiting to come; shall I summon him?'
Laura gave an acquiescent nod.
By this time Beppo had taken root to the floor. 'I am in the best place
after all,' he said, thinking of the duties of his service. He was
perfectly well acquainted with the features of the Signor Antonio. He
knew that Luigi was the Signor Antonio's spy upon Vittoria, and that no
personal harm was intended toward his mistress; but Beppo's heart was in
the revolt of which Vittoria was to give the signal; so, without a touch
of animosity, determined to thwart him, Beppo waited to hear the Signor
Antonio's scheme.
The Greek was introduced by Aennchen. She glanced at the signora's lap,
and seeing her still without her fan, her eye shot slyly up with her
shining temple, inspecting the narrow opening in the curtain furtively.
A short hush of preluding ceremonies passed.
Presently Beppo heard them speaking; he was aghast to find that he
had no comprehension of what they were uttering. 'Oh, accursed French
dialect!' he groaned; discovering the talk to be in that tongue.
The Signor Antonio warmed rapidly from the frigid politeness of his
introductory manner. A consummate acquaintance with French was required
to understand him. He held out the fingers of one hand in regimental
order, and with the others, which alternately screwed his moustache from
its constitutional droop over the corners of his mouth, he touched the
uplifted digits one by one, buzzing over them: flashing his white eyes,
and shrugging in a way sufficient to madden a surreptitious listener
who was aware that a wealth of meaning escaped him and mocked at him. At
times the Signor Antonio pitched a note compounded half of cursing, half
of crying, it seemed: both pathetic and objurgative, as if he whimpered
anathemas and had inexpressible bitter things in his mind. But there
was a remedy! He displayed the specific on a third finger. It was there.
This being done (number three on the fingers), matters might still be
well. So much his electric French and gesticulations plainly asserted.
Beppo strained all his attention for names, in despair at the riddle of
the signs. Names were pillars of light in the dark unintelligible waste.
The signora put a question. It was replied to with the name of the
Maestro Rocco Ricci. Following that, the Signor Antonio accompanied his
voluble delivery with pantomimic action which seemed to indicate the
shutting of a door and an instantaneous galloping of horses--a flight
into air, any-whither. He whipped the visionary steeds with enthusiastic
glee, and appeared to be off skyward like a mad poet, when the signora
again put a question, and at once he struck his hand flat across his
mouth, and sat postured to answer what she pleased with a glare of
polite vexation. She spoke; he echoed her, and the duchess took up the
same phrase. Beppo was assisted by the triangular recurrence of the
words and their partial relationship to Italian to interpret them:
'This night.' Then the signora questioned further. The Greek replied:
'Mademoiselle Irma di Karski.'
'La Lazzeruola,' she said.
The Signor Antonio flashed a bit of sarcastic mimicry, as if acquiescing
in the justice of the opprobrious term from the high point of view: but
mademoiselle might pass, she was good enough for the public.
Beppo heard and saw no more. A tug from behind recalled him to his
situation. He put out his arms and gathered Aennchen all dark in them:
and first kissing her so heartily as to set her trembling on the verge
of a betrayal, before she could collect her wits he struck the fan down
the pretty hollow of her back, between her shoulder-blades, and bounded
away. It was not his intention to rush into the embrace of Jacob
Baumwalder Feckelwitz, but that perambulating chasseur received him in
a semi-darkness where all were shadows, and exclaimed, 'Aennchen!' Beppo
gave an endearing tenderness to the few words of German known to him:
'Gottschaf-donner-dummer!' and slipped from the hold of the astonished
Jacob, sheer under his arm-pit. He was soon in the street, excited
he knew not by what, or for what object. He shuffled the names he
remembered to have just heard--'Rocco Ricci, and 'la Lazzeruola.' Why
did the name of la Lazzeruola come in advance of la Vittoria? And what
was the thing meant by 'this night,' which all three had uttered as in
an agreement?--ay! and the Tyrol! The Tyrol--this night-Rocco Ricci la
Lazzeruola!
Beppo's legs were carrying him toward the house of the Maestro Rocco
Ricci ere he had arrived at any mental decision upon these imminent
mysteries.