The Italians Part 15

"Enrica," he said, taking both her hands within his own, "I fear you are not amused. These subjects are too grave to interest you. What are you thinking about?"

An anxious look came into her eyes, and she glanced hastily round, as if to a.s.sure herself that no one was near.

"Oh! I am thinking of such strange things!" She stopped and hesitated, seeing the cavaliere's glance of surprise. "I should like to tell you all, dear cavaliere--I would give the world to tell you--"

Again she stopped.

"Speak--speak, my child," he answered; "tell me all that is in your mind."

Before she could reply, the count and Balda.s.sare reappeared, accompanied by the porter of the Guinigi Palace and the keys.

"Are you sure you would rather not return home again, Enrica? You have only to turn the corner, remember," asked Trenta, looking at her with anxious affection.

"No, no," she answered, greatly confused; "please say nothing--not now--another time. I should like to ascend the tower; let us go on."

The cavaliere was greatly puzzled. It was plain there was something on her mind. What could it be? How fortunate, he told himself, if she had taken a liking to Marescotti, and desired to confess it! This would make all easy. When he had spoken to the count, he would contrive to see her alone, and insist upon knowing if it were so.

The door was now opened, and the porter led the way, followed by the count and Balda.s.sare. Trenta came next, Enrica last. They ascended stair after stair almost in darkness. After having mounted a considerable height, the porter unlocked a small door that barred their farther advance. Above appeared the blackened walls of the hollow tower, broken by the loop-holes already mentioned, through which the ardent suns.h.i.+ne slanted. Before them was a wooden stair, crossing from angle to angle up to a dizzy height, with no other support but a frail banister; this even was broken in places. The count and Enrica both entreated the cavaliere to remain below.

Marescotti ventured to allude to his great age--a subject he himself continually, as has been seen, mentioned, but which he generally much resented when alluded to by others.

Trenta listened with perfect gravity and politeness, but, when the count had done speaking, he placed his foot firmly on the first stair, and began to ascend after the porter. The others were obliged to follow. At the last flight several loose planks shook ominously under their feet; but Trenta, a.s.sisted by his stick, stepped on perseveringly. He also insisted on helping Enrica, who was next to him, and who by this time was both giddy and frightened. At length a trap-door, at the top of the tower, was reached and unbarred by the attendant. Without, covered with gra.s.s, is a square platform, protected by a machicolated parapet of turreted stone-work. In the centre rises a cl.u.s.ter of ancient bay-trees, fresh and luxuriant, spite of the wind and storms of centuries.

The count leaped out upon the greensward and rushed to the parapet.

"How beautiful!" he exclaimed, throwing back his head and drawing in the warm air. "See how the sun of New Italy lights up the old city!

Cathedral, palace, church, gallery, roof, tower, all ablaze at our feet! Speak, tell me, is it not wonderful?" and he turned to Enrica, who, anxiously turning from side to side, was trying to discover where she could best overlook the street of San Simone and n.o.bili's palace.

Addressed by Marescotti, she started and stopped short.

"Never, never," he continued, becoming greatly excited, "shall I forget this meeting!--here with you--the golden-haired daughter of this ancient house!"

"I!" exclaimed Enrica. "O count, what a mistake! I have no house, no home. I live on the charity of my aunt."

"That makes no difference in your descent, fair Guinigi. Charity!

charity! Who would not shower down oceans of charity to possess such a treasure?" He leaned his back against the parapet, and bent his eyes with fervent admiration on her. "It is only in verse that I can celebrate her," he muttered, "prose is too cold for her warm coloring.

The Madonna--the uninstructed Madonna--before the archangel's visit--"

"But, count," said Enrica timidly (his vehemence and strange glances made her feel very shy), "will you tell me the names of the beautiful mountains around? I have seen so little--I am so ignorant."

"I will, I will," replied Marescotti, speaking rapidly, his glowing eyes raising themselves from her face to look out over the distance; "but, in mercy, grant me a few moments to collect myself. Remember I am a poet; imagination is my world; the unreal my home; the Muses my sisters. I live there above, in the golden clouds"--and he turned and pointed to a crest of glittering vapor sailing across the intense blue of the sky. Then, with his hand pressed on his brow, he began to pace rapidly up and down the narrow platform.

The cavaliere and Balda.s.sare were watching him from the farther end of the tower.

"He! he!" said Trenta, and he gave a little laugh and nudged Balda.s.sare. "Do you see the count? He is fairly off. Marescotti is too poetical for this world. Unpractical, poor fellow--very unpractical.

The fit is on him now. Look at him, Balda.s.sare; see how he stares about, and clinches his fist. I hope he will not leap over the parapet in his ecstasy."

"Ha! ha!" responded Balda.s.sare, who with eyes wide open, and hands thrust into his pockets, leaned back beside Trenta against the wall.

"Ha, ha!--I must laugh," Balda.s.sare whispered into his ear--"I cannot help it--look how the count's lips are moving. He is in the most extraordinary excitement."

"It's all very fine," rejoined Trenta, "but I wonder he does not frighten Enrica. There she stands, quite still. I can't see her face, but she seems to like it. It's all very fine," he repeated, nodding his white head reflectively. "Republicans, communists, orators, poets, heretics--all the plagues of h.e.l.l! Dio buono! give me a little plain common-sense--plain common-sense, and a paternal government. As to Marescotti, these new-fangled notions will turn his brain; he'll end in a mad-house. I don't believe he is quite in his senses at this very minute. Look! look! What strides he is taking up and down! For the love of Heaven, my boy, run and fasten the trap-door tight! He may fall through! He's not safe! I swear it, by all the saints!"

Balda.s.sare, shaking with suppressed laughter, secured the trap-door.

"I must say you are a little hard on the count," Balda.s.sare said.

"Why, he's only composing. I know his way. Trust me, it's a sonnet. He is composing a sonnet addressed perhaps to the signorina. He admires her very much."

Trenta smiled, and mentally determined, for the second time, to take the earliest opportunity of speaking to Count Marescotti before the ridiculous reports circulating in Lucca reached him.

"Per Bacco!" he replied, "when the count is as old as I am, he will have learned that quiet is the greatest luxury a man can enjoy--especially in Italy, where the climate is hot and fevers frequent."

How long the count would have continued in the clouds, it is impossible to say, had he not been suddenly brought down to earth--or, at least, the earth on the top of the tower--by something that suddenly struck his gaze.

Enrica, who had strained her eyes in vain to discover some trace of n.o.bili in the narrow street below, or in the garden behind his palace, had now thrown herself on the gra.s.s under the overhanging branches of the glossy bay-trees. These inclosed her as in a bower. Her colorless face rested upon her hand, her eyes were turned toward the ground, and her long blond hair fell in a tangled ma.s.s below the folds of her veil, upon her white dress. The count stood transfixed before her.

"Move not, sweet vision!" he cried. "Be ever so! That innocent face shaded by the cla.s.sic bay; that white robe rustling with the thrill of womanly affinities; those fair locks floating like an aureole in the breeze thy breath has softly perfumed! Rest there enthroned--the world thy backguard, the sky thy canopy! Stay, let me crown thee!"

As he spoke he hastily plucked some sprays of bay, which he twisted into a wreath. He approached Enrica, who had remained quite still, and, kneeling at her feet, placed the wreath upon her head.

"Enrica Guinigi"--the count spoke so softly that neither Trenta nor Balda.s.sare could catch the words--"there is something in your beauty too ethereal for this world."

Enrica, covered with blushes, tried to rise, but he held out his hands imploringly for her to remain.

"Suffer me to speak to you. Yours is a face of one easily moved to love--to love and to suffer," he added, strange lights coming into his eyes as he gazed at her.

Enrica listened to him in painful silence; his words sounded prophetic.

"To love and to suffer; but, loving once"--again the count was speaking, and his voice enchained her by its sweetness--"to love forever. Where shall the man be found pure enough to dare to accept such love as you can bestow? By Heavens!" he added, and his voice fell to a whisper, and his black eyes seemed to penetrate into her very soul, "you love already. I read it in the depths of those heavenly eyes, in the shadow that already darkens that soft brow, in the dreamy, languid air that robs you of your youth. You love--is it possible that you love--?"

He stopped before the question was finished--before the name was uttered. A spasm, as if wrung from him by sharp bodily pain, pa.s.sed over his features as he asked this question, never destined to be answered. No one but Enrica had heard it. An indescribable terror seized her; from pale she grew deadly white; her eyelids dropped, her lips trembled. Tears gathered in Marescotti's eyes as he gazed at her, but he dared not complete the question.

"If you have guessed my secret, do not--oh! do not betray me!"

She said this so faintly that the sound came to him like a whisper from the rustling bay-leaves.

"Never!" he responded in a low, earnest tone--"never!"

She believed him implicitly. With that look, that voice, who could doubt him?

"I have cause to suffer," she replied with a sigh, not venturing to meet his eyes--"to suffer and to wait. But my aunt--"

She said no more; her head fell on her bosom, her arms dropped to her side, she sighed deeply.

"May I be at hand to s.h.i.+eld you!" was his answer.

After this, he, too, was silent. Rising from his knees, he leaned against the trunk of the bay-tree and contemplated her steadfastly.

There was a strange mixture of pa.s.sion and of curiosity in his mobile face. If she would not tell him, could he not rend her secret from her?

Trenta, seated at the opposite side of the platform, observed them as they stood side by side, half concealed by the foliage--observed them with benign satisfaction. It was all as it should be; his mission would be easy. It was clear they understood each other. He believed at that very moment Enrica was receiving the confession of Marescotti's love; the confusion of her looks was conclusive. The cavaliere's whole endeavor was, at that moment, to keep Balda.s.sare quiet; he rejoiced to see that he was gently yielding to the influence of the heat, and nodding at his side.