The Italians Part 4

Enrica, as has been said, was the marchesa's niece, and lived with her. She was the only child of her sister, who died when she was born. This sister (herself, as well as the marchesa, _born_ Guinigi Ruscellai) had also married a Guinigi, a distant cousin of the marchesa's husband, belonging to a third branch of the family, settled at Mantua. Of this collateral branch, all had died out. Antonio Guinigi, of Mantua, Enrica's father, in the prime of life, was killed in a duel, resulting from one of those small social affronts that so frequently do provoke duels in Italy. (I knew a certain T---- who called out a certain G---- because G---- had said T----'s rooms were not properly carpeted.) Generally these encounters with swords are as trifling in their results as in their origin. But the duel in question, fought by Antonio Guinigi, was unfortunately not so. He died on the spot. Enrica, when two years old, was an orphan. Thus it came that she had known no home but the home of her aunt. The marchesa had never shown her any particular kindness. She had ordered her servants to take care of her. That was all. Scarcely ever had she kissed her; never pa.s.sed her hand among the sunny curls that fell upon the quiet child's face and neck. The marchesa, in fact, had not so much as noticed her childish beauty and enticing ways.

Enrica had grown up accustomed to bear with her aunt's haughty, ungracious manners and capricious temper. She scarcely knew that there was any thing to bear. She had been left to herself as long as she could remember any thing. A peasant--Teresa, her foster-mother--had come with her from Mantua, and from Teresa alone she received such affection as she had ever known. A mere animal affection, however, which lost its value as she grew into womanhood.

Thus it was that Enrica came to accept the marchesa's rough tongue, her arrogance, and her caprices, as a normal state of existence. She never complained. If she suffered, it was in silence. To reason with the marchesa, much more dispute with her, was worse than useless. She was not accustomed to be talked to, certainly not by her niece. It only exasperated her and fixed her more doggedly in whatever purpose she might have in hand. But there was a certain stern sense of justice about her when left to herself--if only the demon of her family pride were not aroused, then she was inexorable--that would sometimes come to the rescue. Yet, under all the tyranny of this neutral life which circ.u.mstances had imposed on her, Enrica, unknown to herself--for how should she, who knew so little, know herself?--grew up to have a strong will. She might be bent, but she would never break. In this she resembled the marchesa. Gentle, loving, and outwardly submissive, she was yet pa.s.sively determined. Even the marchesa came to be dimly conscious of this, although she considered it as utterly unimportant, otherwise than to punish and to repress.

Shut up within the dreary palace at Lucca, or in the mountain solitude of Corellia, Enrica yearned for freedom. She was like a young bird, full-fledged and strong, that longs to leave the parent-nest--to stretch its stout wings on the warm air--to soar upward into the light!

Now the light had come to Enrica. It came when she first saw Count n.o.bili. It shone in her eyes, it dazzled her, it intoxicated her. On that day a new world opened before her--a fair and pleasant world, light with the dawn of love--a world as different as golden summer to the winter of her home. How she gloried in n.o.bili! How she loved him!--his comely looks, his kindling smile (like suns.h.i.+ne everywhere), his lordly ways, his triumphant prosperity! He had come to her, she knew not how. She had never sought him. He had come--come like fate.

She never asked herself if it was wrong or right to love him. How could she help it? Was he not born to be loved? Was he not her own--a thousand times her own--as he told her--"forever?" She believed in him as she believed in G.o.d. She neither knew nor cared whither she was drifting, so that it was with him! She was as one sailing with a fair wind on an endless sea--a sea full of sunlight--sailing she knew not where! Think no evil of her, I pray you. She was not wicked nor deceitful--only ignorant, with such ignorance as made the angels fall.

As yet n.o.bili and Enrica had only met in such manner as has been told by old Carlotta to her gossip Brigitta. Letters, glances, sighs, had pa.s.sed across the street, from palace to palace at the Venetian cas.e.m.e.nts--under the darkly-ivied archway of the Moorish garden--at the cathedral in the gray evening light, or in the earliest glow of summer mornings--and this, so seldom! Every time they had met n.o.bili implored Enrica, pa.s.sionately, to escape from the thralldom of her life, implored her to become his wife. With his pleading eyes fixed upon her, he asked her "why she should sacrifice him to the senseless pride of her aunt? He whose whole life was hers?"

But Enrica shrank from compliance, with a secret sense that she had no right to do what he asked; no right to marry without her aunt's consent. Her love was her own to give. She had thought it all out for herself, pacing up and down under the cool marble arcades of the Moorish garden, the splash of the fountain in her ears--Teresa had told her the same--her love was her own to give. What had her aunt done for her, her sister's child, but feed and clothe her? Indeed, as Teresa said, the marchesa had done but little else. Enrica was as unconscious as Teresa of those marriage schemes of her aunt which centred in herself. Had she known what was reserved for her, she would better have understood the marchesa's nature; then she might have acted differently. But heretofore there had been no question of her marriage. Although she was seventeen, she had always been treated as a mere child. She scarcely dared to speak in her aunt's presence, or to address a question to her. Her love, then, she thought, was her own to bestow; but more?--No, no even to n.o.bili. He urged, he entreated, he reproached her, but in vain. He implored her to inform the marchesa of their engagement. (n.o.bili could not offer to do this himself; the marchesa would have refused to admit him within her door.) But Enrica would not consent to do even this. She knew her aunt too well to trust her with her secret. She knew that she was both subtle, and, where her own plans were concerned, or her will thwarted, treacherous also.

Enrica had been taught not only to obey the marchesa implicitly, but never to dispute her will. Hitherto she had had no will but hers.

How, then, could she all at once shake off the feeling of awe, almost terror, with which her aunt inspired her? Besides, was not the very sound of n.o.bili's name abhorrent to her? Why the marchesa should abhor him or his name, Enrica could not tell. It was a mystery to her altogether beyond her small experience of life. But it was so. No, she would say nothing; that was safest. The marchesa, if displeased, was quite capable of carrying her away from Lucca to Corellia--perhaps leaving her there alone in the mountains. She might even shut her up in a convent for life!--Then she should die!

No, she would say nothing.

CHAPTER VI.

MARCHESA GUINIGI AT HOME.

The marchesa was, as I have said, in a very bad humor. She had by no means recovered from what she conceived to be the affront put upon her by the brilliant display made by Count n.o.bili, at the festival of the Holy Countenance, nor, indeed, from the festival itself.

She had had the satisfaction of shutting up her palace, it is true; but she was not quite sure if this had impressed the public mind of Lucca as she had intended. She felt painful doubts as to whether the splendors opposite had not so entirely engrossed public attention that no eye was left to observe any thing else--at least, in that street.

It was possible, she thought, that another year it might be wiser not to shut up her palace at all, but so far to overcome her feelings as to exhibit the superb hangings, the banners, the damask, and cloth of gold, used in the mediaeval festivals and processions, and thus outdo the modern tinsel of Count n.o.bili.

Besides the festival, and Count n.o.bili's audacity, the marchesa had a further cause for ill-humor. No one had come on that evening to play her usual game of whist. Even Trenta had deserted her. She had said to herself that when she--the Marchesa Guinigi--"received," no other company, no other engagement whatever, ought to interfere with the honor that her company conferred. These were valid causes of ill-humor to any lady of the marchesa's humor.

She was seated now in the sitting-room of her own particular suite, one of three small and rather stuffy rooms, on the second floor. These rooms consisted of an anteroom, covered with a cretonne paper of blue and brown, a carpetless floor, a table, and some common, straw chairs placed against the wall. From the anteroom two doors led into two bedrooms, one on either side. Another door, opposite the entrance, opened into the sitting-room.

All the windows this way faced toward the garden, the wall of which ran parallel to the palace and to the street. The marchesa's room had flaunting green walls with a red border; the ceiling was gaudily painted with angels, flowers, and festoons. Some colored prints hung on the walls--a portrait of the Empress Eugenie on horseback, in a Spanish dress, and four glaring views of Vesuvius in full eruption. A divan, covered with well-worn chintz, ran round two sides of the room. Between the ranges of the graceful cas.e.m.e.nts stood a marble console-table, with a mirror in a black frame. An open card-table was placed near the marchesa. On the table there was a pack of not over-clean cards, some markers, and a pair of candles (the candles still unlighted, for the days are long, and it is only six o'clock).

There was not a single ornament in the whole room, nor any object whatever on which the eye could rest with pleasure. White-cotton curtains concealed the delicate tracery and the interlacing columns of the Venetian windows. Beneath lay the Moorish garden, entered from the street by an arched gate-way, over which long trails of ivy hung.

Beautiful in itself, the Moorish garden was an incongruous appendage to a Gothic palace. One of the Guinigi, commanding for the Emperor Charles V. in Spain, saw Granada and the Alhambra. On his return to Lucca, he built this architectural plaisance on a bare plot of ground, used for jousts and tilting. That is its history. There it has been since. It is small--a city garden--belted inside by a pointed arcade of black-and-white marble.

In the centre is a fountain. The glistening waters shoot upward refres.h.i.+ngly in the warm evening air, to fall back on the heads of four marble lions, supporting a marble basin. Fine white gravel covers the ground, broken by statues and vases, and tufts of flowering shrubs growing luxuriantly under the shelter of the arcade--many-colored altheas, flaming pomegranates, graceful pepper-trees with bright, beady seeds, and magnolias, as stalwart as oaks, hanging over the fountain.

The strong perfume of the magnolia-blossoms, still white upon the boughs, is wafted upward to the open window of the marchesa's sitting-room; the sun is low, and the shadows of the pointed arches double themselves upon the ground. Shadows, too, high up the horizon, penetrate into the room, and strike across the variegated scagliola floor, and upon a table in the centre, on which a silver tray is placed, with gla.s.ses of lemonade. Round the table are ranged chairs of tarnished gilding, and a small settee with spindle-legs.

In her present phase of life, the squalor of these rooms is congenial to the marchesa. Hitherto reckless of expense, especially in law, she has all at once grown parsimonious to excess. As to the effect this change may produce on others, and whether this mode of life is in keeping with the stately palace she inhabits, the marchesa does not care in the least; it pleases her, that is enough. All her life she has been quite clear on two points--her belief in herself, and her belief in the name she bears.

The marchesa leans back on a high-backed chair and frowns. To frown is so habitual to her that the wrinkles on her forehead and between her eyebrows are prematurely deepened. She has a long, sallow face, a straight nose, keen black eyes, a high forehead, and a thin-lipped mouth. She is upright, and well made; and the folds of her plain black dress hang about her tall figure with a certain dignity. Her dark hair, now sprinkled with white, is fully dressed, the bands combed low on her forehead. She wears no ornament, except the golden cross of a _chanoinesse._

As she leans back on her high-backed chair she silently observes her niece, seated near the open window, knitting.

"If she had been my child!" was the marchesa's thought. "Why was I denied a child?" And she sighed.

The rays of the setting sun dance among the ripples of Enrica's blond hair, and light up the dazzling whiteness of her skin. Seen thus in profile, although her features are regular, and her expression full of sweetness, it is rather the promise than the perfection of actual beauty--the rose-bud--by-and-by to expand into the perfect flower.

There was a knock at the door, and a ruddy old face looked in. It is the Cavaliere Trenta, in his official blue coat and gold b.u.t.tons, nankeen inexpressibles, a broad-brimmed white hat and a gold-headed cane in his hand. Whatever speck of dust might have had the audacity to venture to settle itself upon any part of the cavaliere's official blue coat, must at once have hidden its diminished head after peeping at the cavaliere's beaming countenance, so scrubbed and s.h.i.+ny, the white hair so symmetrically arranged upon his forehead in little curls--his whole appearance so neat and trim.

"Is it permitted to enter?" he asked, smiling blandly at the marchesa, as, leaning upon his stick, he made her a ceremonious bow.

"Yes, Cesarino, yes, you may enter," she replied, stiffly. "I cannot very well send you away now--but you deserve it."

"Why, most distinguished lady?" again asked Trenta, submissively, closing the door, and advancing to where she sat. He bent down his head and kissed her hand, then smiled at Enrica. "What have I done?"

"Done? You know you never came last night at all. I missed my game of whist. I do not sleep well without it."

"But, marchesa," pleaded Trenta, in the gentlest voice, "I am desolated, as you can conceive--desolated; but what could I do?

Yesterday was the festival of the Holy Countenance, that solemn anniversary that brings prosperity to our dear city!" And the cavaliere cast up his mild blue eyes, and crossed himself upon the breast. "I was most of the day in the cathedral. Such a service!

Better music than last year. In the evening I had promised to arrange the cotillon at Countess Orsetti's ball. As chamberlain to his late highness the Duke of Lucca, it is expected of me to organize every thing. One can leave nothing to that animal Balda.s.sare--he has no head, no system; he dances well, but like a machine. The ball was magnificent--a great success," he continued, speaking rapidly, for he saw that a storm was gathering on the marchesa's brow, by the deepening of the wrinkles between her eyes. "A great success. I took a few turns myself with Teresa Ottolini--tra la la la la," and he swayed his head and shoulders to and fro as he hummed a waltz-tune.

"_You_!" exclaimed the marchesa, staring at him with a look of contempt--"_you_!"

"Yes. Why not? I am as young as ever, dear marchesa--eighty, the prime of life!"

"The festival of the Holy Countenance and the cotillon!" cried the marchesa, with great indignation. "Tell me nothing about the Orsetti ball. I won't listen to it. Good Heavens!" she continued, reddening, "I am thirty years younger than you are, but I left off dancing fifteen years ago. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Cesarino!"

Cesarino only smiled at her benignantly in reply. She had called him a fool so often! He seated himself beside her without speaking. He had come prepared to entertain her with an account of every detail of the ball; but seeing the temper she was in, he deemed it more prudent to be silent--to be silent specially about Count n.o.bili. The mention of his name would, he knew, put her in a fury, so, being a prudent man, and a courtier, he entirely dropped the subject of the ball. Yet Trenta was a privileged person. He never voluntarily contradicted the marchesa, but when occasion arose he always spoke his mind, fearless of consequences. As he and the marchesa disagreed on almost every possible subject, disputes often arose between them; but, thanks to Trenta's pliant temper and perfect good-breeding, they were always amicably settled.

"Count Marescotti and Balda.s.sare are outside," continued Trenta, looking at her inquiringly, as the marchesa had not spoken. "They are waiting to know if the ill.u.s.trious lady receives this evening, and if she will permit them to join her usual whist-party."

"Marescotti!--where may he come from?--the clouds, perhaps--or the last balloon?" asked the marchesa, looking up.

"From Rome; he arrived two days ago. He is no longer so erratic. Will you allow him to join us?"

"I shall certainly play my rubber if I am permitted," answered the marchesa, drawing herself up.

This was intended as a sarcastic reminder of the disregard shown to her by the cavaliere the evening before; but the sarcasm was quite thrown away upon Trenta; he was very simple and straightforward.

"The marchesa has only to command me," was his polite reply. "I wonder Marescotti and Balda.s.sare are not here already," he added, looking toward the door. "I left them both in the street; they were to follow me up-stairs immediately."

"Ah!" said the marchesa, smiling sarcastically, "Count Marescotti is not to be trusted. He is a genius--he may be back on his way to Rome by this time."

"No, no," answered Trenta, rising and walking toward the door, which he opened and held in his hand, while he kept his eyes fixed on the staircase; "Marescotti is disgusted with Rome--with the Parliament, with the Government--with every thing. He abuses the munic.i.p.ality because a secret republican committee which he headed, in correspondence with Paris, has been discovered by the police and denounced. He had to escape in disguise."

"Well, well, I rejoice to hear it!" broke in the marchesa. "It is a good Government; let him find a better. Why has he come to Lucca? We want no _sans-culottes_ here."

"Marescotti declares," continued the cavaliere, "that even now Rome is still in bondage, and sunk in superst.i.tion. He calls it superst.i.tion.

He would like to shut up all the churches. He believes in nothing but poetry and Red republicans. Any kind of Christian belief he calls superst.i.tion."

"Marescotti is quite right," said the marchesa, angrily; she was determined to contradict the cavaliere. "You are a bigot, Trenta--an old bigot. You believe every thing a priest tells you. A fine exhibition we had yesterday of what that comes to! The Holy Countenance! Do you think any educated person in Lucca believes in the Holy Countenance? I do not. It is only an excuse for idleness--for idleness, I say. Priests love idleness; they go into the Church because they are too idle to work." She raised her voice, and looked defiantly at Trenta, who stood before her the picture of meek endurance--holding the door-handle. "I hope I shall live to see all festivals abolished. Why didn't the Government do it altogether when they were about it?--no convents, no monks, no holidays, except on Sunday! Make the people work--work for their bread! We should have fewer taxes, and no beggars."