At the Circolo again
At the Circolo that evening there was no lack of subject for
conversation, as may be easily imagined. The rooms were very full, and
every tongue was busy with the same topic.
"For my part I don't believe that La Bianca is dead at all. What proof
have we of the fact? Somebody has been told that somebody else heard
some other pumpkin-head say so. Report, signori miei, is an habitual
liar, and I for one never believe a word she says without evidence of
the truth of it," said the Conte Luigi Spadoni, a man who was known to
make a practice of reading French novels, and was therefore held to be
an esprit fort and a philosopher, in accordance with which character he
always professed indiscriminate disbelief in everything.
"Oh come, Spadoni, that won't do this time. Bah, you are the only living
soul in the town that don't believe it then. Evidence, per Dio! Go and
ask the men at the Porta Nuova, who received the body, when the
contadini brought it in," cried a dozen voices at once.
"But Spadoni has the weakness of being so excessively credulous," said a
bald young man with gold spectacles, looking up from a game of chess he
was playing in a corner.
"Who, I? I credulous? That is a good one! Why I said, man alive, that I
disbelieved it," cried Spadoni, eagerly.
"I know it, and very credulous indeed it seems to me, to believe that
all the people, who say they have seen the prima donna's dead body,
should be mistaken in such a fact, or conspiring without motive to
declare it falsely. I call that very credulous," said the chess-player,
quietly.
"Did you ever see such an addle-pate. He can't understand the difference
between believing and disbelieving," rejoined Spadoni triumphantly, and
carrying the great bulk of the bystanders with him.
"But as to the poor girl being dead, there is unhappily no shadow of
doubt at all," said the Baron Manutoli; "I saw old Signor Fortini the
lawyer just now, who told me that he was at the Porta Nuova when the
body was brought in."
"And is it true that the Marchese Ludovico was with him, and fainted
dead away at the sight of the body?" said a very young man.
"It is true that Ludovico was there with Fortini at the gate, but I
heard nothing about his fainting; and should not think it very likely."
"Well, I don't know about that, I should have thought it likely enough
by all accounts," said the Conte Leandro Lombardoni, whose face was
looking more pasty and his eyes more fishy than usual.
"Much you know about it. Why, in the name of all the saints, should it
be likely? What should Ludovico faint for?" rejoined Manutoli, fiercely.
"What for? Well, one has heard of such things. And as for what I know
about it, Signor Barone, maybe I have the means of knowing more about it
than anybody here," said the poet.
"Here is Lombardoni confesses he knows all about it," cried one.
"That ought to be told to the Commissary of Police" said another
"I say, my notion is that Lombardoni did it himself," exclaimed a third.
"Ah, to be sure. What is more likely? We all know how the poor Diva
snubbed him. Remember the fate of his verses. If that is not enough to
drive a man and a poet to do murder I don't know what is. To be sure,
'twas Leandro did it," rejoined the first.
"I can believe that, if I never believe anything else," said Spadoni.
"Let's send to the Commissary and tell him that the Conte Leandro
confesses that it was he that murdered La Bianca, cried one of the
previous speakers.
"What on earth are you dreaming of," cried the persecuted poet, turning
ghastly livid with affright; "I know nothing about the matter, nothing!
How in the world should I know anything about it?"
"Oh, I thought you knew more about it than anybody else just now,"
sneered one of his persecutors.
"He looks to me very much as if he did know something about it in sober
earnest," said the bald-headed chess-player; who had been looking hard
at the evidences of terror on the poet's face.
"But where is the Marchese Ludovico?" asked the same young man, who had
heard that the Marchese had fainted at the sight of the body.
A general silence fell on the chattering group at this question: till
Manutoli answered with a very grave face "Ah, you must ask the
Commissary of Police that question, Signor Marco."
"You don't mean that he is arrested," returned the youngster thus
addressed.
Manutoli nodded his head two or three times gravely, as he said, "That
is the worst of the bad business; and a very bad business it is in every
way."
"You don't mean that you think Ludovico can have done it, Manutoli?"
said one of the others.
"No, I don't say I think so. I don't know what to think. I should have
said, that I was just as likely to do such a thing myself, as Ludovico
di Castelmare. But if there is any truth in what is said, that the
Marchese Lamberto was going to marry the girl, it looks very ugly. God
knows what a man might be driven to do in such a case."
"I suppose if the old Marchese were to marry and have children, Ludovico
would have about the same fortune as the old blind man that sits at the
door of the Cathedral?" asked the previous speaker.
"Just about as much. He would be absolutely a beggar," said the Conte
Leandro, who appeared to find considerable pleasure in the announcement.
"I think, that if that was the case, and Ludovico had put the unlucky
girl out of the way, it would be the Marchese Lamberto who ought to bear
the blame of it. An old fellow has no right to behave in that sort of
way," said one of the group.
"Of course he has not. To bring a fellow up to the age of Ludovico in
the expectation that he is to have the family property; and then to take
it into his head to marry when he is past fifty. If Ludovico had put a
knife into him instead of into the girl, I should have said that it
served him right," said another.
"And what was the good of murdering the girl? If the old fellow wants to
be married, he will marry some other girl if not this one. Girls are
plenty enough," said a third.
"Ay, but not such girls as La Bianca--what a lovely creature she was! I
don't wonder at the Marchese being caught by her, for my part, seeing
her every day as he did," remarked a fourth.
"Bah, girls are plenty enough, as Gino said, and pretty girls too. And
if the Marchese was minded to marry, it wasn't the murder of this poor
girl that would stop him," said one of the others.
"And that is a strong reason, as it strikes me, for thinking that
Ludovico had nothing to do with it. He must have known, as well as we,
that it was likely enough his uncle would find somebody else," remarked
Manutoli.
"Well, we shall see. But I would wager a good round sum that Ludovico
did it," said the Conte Leandro; who had by that time recovered his
tranquillity.
"Oh, now here's Leandro, who begins to think again that he does know
something about it," said the Barone Manutoli.
"I said nothing of the sort, Signor Barone. How should I know? But
everybody may have his opinion, and that is mine. We shall see
by-and-by," returned Leandro, waspishly.
"I'll tell you what, signori miei," said Manutoli; "let it turn out as
it may, it is the saddest and worst affair that has been seen in Ravenna
for many a day. I won't admit the thought, for my part, that the
Marchese Ludovico has really committed this murder. I should prefer to
suppose, that some vagabonds had done it for the sake of robbery, and
had been disturbed before they could carry out their purpose, or
anything. But it is a very sad affair. I would have done I don't know
what, rather than that it should have happened. Think what will be said.
That's what an artist gets by venturing to Ravenna. You will see the
noise that will be made all over Italy."
"But why does it follow that anybody is to blame, at all? Why may she
not have put herself to death?" said one of the previous speakers.
"A suicide! that is a new idea. But it does not seem a very promising
one. Why should she kill herself? She was in the full tide of success,
and had just received an offer of marriage, if what we hear is true,
from the richest man in Ravenna. Is it likely that she should choose
just that moment to make away with herself?" replied another.
"In any case the doctors will know what to tell us about that. They can
always tell whether anybody has killed themselves or been murdered by
somebody else."
"By the way, Signor Barone, have you heard whether the medical report
has been made yet? But I suppose the police would not let us know what
the doctor's opinion was, if it had been made. Who knows who has been
employed to examine the body?"
"I know!" answered the Baron Manutoli, "the Professore Tomosarchi. And
whatever can be found out by examining the body, he will find out,
depend upon it. I was asking about it just now. The examination will
take place to-morrow morning."
"But who ever heard of such a thing as going off to the Pineta at that
time in the morning, and after being up all night at a ball too?" said
Lombardoni, spitefully. "Why, it looks as if a man must have had some
scheme, some out-of-the-way motive of some kind to do such a thing."
"Not at all," returned Manutoli angrily, "I don't see that at all. A
charmingly imagined frolic, I should say, a capital wind-up for a last
night of carnival. I should have liked it myself."
"And then," said one of the others, "one can't refuse such a girl as La
Bianca. And it's two to one that she asked Ludovico to take her, for a
lark."
"But I happen to know," said Leandro, quickly, "that it was he who
proposed it to her. He persuaded her to go."
"And how in the world do you know that, pray?" asked Manutoli, turning
sharply upon him.
"I--I heard it said. I was told so. I am sure I don't know who it was
said so. Nobody has been talking about anything else. Some fellow or
other said that Ludovico had proposed the trip to her."
"The fact is, in short, that you know just nothing at all about it. You
happen to know, forsooth! It seems to me, Signor Conte, that you are
strangely ready to fancy you know anything that might seem to go against
Ludovico," rejoined Manutoli.
"And what would be the result if it should turn out that he was
guilty--if he were condemned?" asked one of the younger men, looking
afraid of his words, as he spoke them.
"God knows,--the galleys, I suppose. But one must not imagine such a
thing. It is too frightful," said Manutoli.
"Horrible! Shocking! Impossible!" cried a chorus of voices.
"Good God! Result! The disgrace and destruction of the noblest family in
the province. The ending of a fine old name in infamy. Gracious heaven,
it is too horrible to think of," exclaimed Manutoli, with much emotion.
"It would kill the old Marchese as dead as a door-nail, for one thing,"
said another of the group of young men.
"And serve him right too. If it is really true that he has contemplated
being guilty of such a monstrous piece of injustice and folly," said the
same man, who had before expressed a similar opinion.
Just then a servant of the Circolo came into the room and put a note
into the hands of the Baron Manutoli.
"It is from Ludovico, asking me to go to him. So there's an end to our
game of billiards, Signor Conte," said Manutoli to one of the group; "I
must go at once."
"But you'll come back here after you've seen him, won't you? You'll come
back and tell us all about it, Manutoli?" said two or three of the group
which had been discussing the topic.
"I don't know, I shall see. I will, if I can--if it's not too late. It
may be that I shall be detained with him. I suppose that he has had no
means of communicating with any of his people since the police folk
clapped their hands on him."
"Do look in here for a moment, Manutoli. We shall all be anxious to hear
about him, poor fellow,", said another of the young men, who had pressed
around Signor Manutoli as soon as it was known from whom his note had
come.
"If I can I will. It is likely enough he may want me to go somewhere
else for him. We shall see. A rivederci, Signori."