Witch Winnie's Mystery, or The Old Oak Cabinet Part 31

"Presently, while I waited here, Raphael came hastily in, having just completed his lesson in colouring with the Fra Bartolommeo, an artist who turned monk under the preaching of Savonarola, and whom Raphael has chosen as master during his stay in Florence. He told me somewhat of this good monk; how when he was a talented and rising young man, with life and ambition all before him, he gave his paintings to the flames with which the Piagnoni consumed the vanities of this world in the public streets, because he feared lest he loved his art more than G.o.d. But since he has renounced the world, the Prior has told him that he can best serve the Church by painting altar-pieces, so that his cell is changed to a studio, and G.o.d has granted him such access of genius that he paints more divinely than before, and churches and monasteries in Venice and other distant cities send daily for his paintings. But he knows not where they go, nor how much money they bring the convent, for he paints only for the love of G.o.d.

"Raphael told me also of the heavenly frescoes of Fra Angelico, with which the walls of the pa.s.sages and even the cells of the convent, are covered, and he added, 'Truly, I think that Art and a monastic life wed well together, and I would willingly retire to some cloistered garden afar from the world, if I might carry my box of colours with me, and might sometimes see in a vision a face like thine to paint from!'

"Then was I seized with a foolish timidity, so that I could in no wise answer, but my heart said, 'And why afar from the world, why not in it, making all things better and happier?'

"Ah! sweet lady, I know you will say, 'My little Maria is grown wondrous foolish and love-sick'; but I pray you chide me not, seeing that the matter cannot grow further, for I am not likely again to meet with Raphael, since I have come to visit for some days, on invitation of your sweet daughter Madonna Maddalena Strozzi. Nor were it best that I should see him often, for I do fear me that in such case my heart might become so rashly pitched and fixed upon him that I should in time most inconsiderately fall in love, which were a bold and unmaidenly thing to do; and I mind me that you were wont to tell me that no woman should allow her affections to conduct themselves thus insubordinately, until the church hath by the sacrament of marriage given her license thereto.

"And so, madame, praying Maria Sanctissima and Maria the sister of Lazarus, my patroness, to keep me constant in this mind, I rest your loving friend and devoted servitor,

"MARIA BIBBIENA.

"_Niccolo Macchiavelli to Bramante, Architect to Pope Julius I, at Rome_:

"MESSER BRAMANTE MIO:

"We have no longer any politics in Florence. The Medici trusted to the luck of their name; but Florence would have none of them, and Piero had not the head for his position. He might have had the advantage of my brains if he had so chosen; but he had not the wit to appreciate wit. The Magnificent was right when he said that he had three sons, the one good, the second crafty, the third a fool.

The good die young: Piero, the fool, has lost his inheritance; it remains for the crafty Giovanni to make good the prestige of his family. The chances are against him, but if he has something better than maccaroni under his tonsure, he will make the Church his ladder to power. I thought at one time that Savonarola was perhaps shrewder than he seemed, and that he would succeed in tumbling Alexander out of the Papal Chair and in taking his seat therein as the Pope Angelico. But it seemed that the dolt never cared for the Papacy, but only for saving souls! I fear no such cause of defeat for a Medici, but I hear rumours concerning Giovanni which make me fear that he is not crafty enough for success. He has been dissolute; that is no hindrance to a cardinal's hat or even to the tiara; the folly I dread is more fatal. They say that he has reformed his life and is thinking of marriage. If this is true, I renounce his cause in favor of that of Caesar Borgia, who has the audacity of a lion joined to the rascality of a fox, and who is not hindered from the putting in practice of my principles by any so cowardly and stupid a thing as a conscience. And yet they say that his superb physical manhood is now a wreck, bloated and permeated through and through with the subtle poison which his family alone knows how to prepare, and whose effects they can only partially eradicate. Savonarola, Borgia, Medici, blunderers all! What name will the next wave bring to the surface?

"But a truce to politics. You know this is a subject from which I can no more keep my thoughts than a greedy urchin can forbear thrusting his fingers into a pot of comfits. I am not so absorbed in my favourite pastime, however, but I can take an interest in all that interests my friends, especially in such matters as are flavoured with a spice of intrigue, than which no condiment soever is better suited to my palate. Touching, therefore, the matter concerning which you wrote me, I think that you, as chief architect to his Holiness, have indeed cause to fear the rivalry of Michael Angelo, for I am credibly informed that he is minded presently to journey toward Rome. Moreover, since it is the practice of popes to be always meddling with works of art, marring and defacing the excellent things done in the Pontificates of those preceding them,--when they cannot improve upon them,--and whereas they are a whimsical lot, not long contented with one object or one workman, be he ever so excellent, you have sufficient cause, I say, to fear, having now continued in favour for some time, that this Michael Angelo will supplant you in the favour of his Holiness. I would suggest, therefore, that you search about for some new artist, who shall occupy himself with a line of work as fresco painting, not in any way interfering with your own architectural designs, but rather depending upon them; and that you make haste to introduce him to the Pope, and if possible ingratiate him into his favour that, his mind being taken up with this new favourite, and his purse lightened by the dispensing of moneys for these new works, he will be less inclined to look favourably upon a new architect such as Michael Angelo.

And inasmuch as it seemeth to me that this thing requireth haste, I have looked about me somewhat in Florence to find a man suited to your occasions.

"I first bethought me of Leonardo da Vinci as being the successful rival of Michael Angelo in this city, and against whom he could not for a moment contend. But da Vinci hath no drawings toward Rome. I have marked for a long time that he cutteth his doublet after the French fas.h.i.+on. Trust me, he is no man for us; he would rather trip it merrily with French dames than wear out his knees on the cold scagliola of the Vatican. I have bethought me also that Leonardo is too old and subtle for you; you need a man whom you can manage; who shall look up to you as a patron and as a superior. My eye hath lately fallen upon a youngster of surprising talent as a painter, a stranger in Florence, of no great influence, and utterly unknown to fame. He hath as yet no great opinion of himself; make haste to secure him before others shall enlighten him as to his merits. This youth is called Raphael Santi, and I make sure that the pope will greatly prefer this silken dove to that porcupine Angelo.

"I would the more willingly see him advanced in some foreign city in that my good friend Cardinal Bibbiena seems desirous with all expedition to get him forth from Florence, and yet it is not so much from a desire to pleasure Bibbiena, as from a conviction that I have found here a tool of proper service to thee, that I thus recommend him to thy good offices.

"To conclude, my Bramante, make all speed to inform his Holiness that the walls of the Vatican are cracked, smoky, filthy, and disgraceful, and above all things fetch thy Raphael quickly and gain for him a personal interview; for I trust more to the charm of his presence than to volumes of thy bungling speech.

"And when thou hast need of further counsel, or seest that the pope desireth an Ahithophel,--now the counsel of Ahithophel which he counselled in those days was as if a man had enquired at the oracle,--why send then and fetch thy ever loving and honest friend,

"MACCHIAVELLI.

"FLORENCE, October 12, 1504.

"_Maria Bibbiena to the Lady Alfonsina Orsini Medici, wife of Piero dei Medici, at Urbino_:

"FLORENCE, October 15, 1504.

"MOST MAGNIFICENT, MOST BELOVED, AND MOST SWEET LADY:

"Since I last made bold to write you of my small matters, others more weighty to me have transpired, which, as I have made a beginning, I will also make an end in the way of their narration.

And first I have met with a small disquietness from your highness's brother-in-law, the Cardinal, concerning whose presence in Florence I had not heard. For yestreen, when I was playing upon my lute in the garden of the palazzo of your daughter, Madonna Strozzi, he came upon me suddenly walking with your daughter.

Whereat he seemed at first taken all aback, but the Lady Maddalena exclaimed, 'A new Petrarch, and new Laura,' and commanded him on his fame as a scholar to make some rhymes on that subject. Whereat he replied that if I would continue playing he would write, as his patron, St. Cupid, gave him utterance, and with that he improvised and wrote out the nonsense herewith following:

"In all Avignon's gardens the nightingales were mute As at her open cas.e.m.e.nt she played upon her lute.

The lonely scholar Petrarch wandered all listlessly; 'The old man with the hour-gla.s.s has sure some grudge 'gainst me.

The sands they fall so sluggishly that tell the flight of time; My studies all are tedium, and weariness my rhyme.'

'Twas then the Lady Laura, with lips like ripened fruit, And lily-petalled fingers, full sweetly touched the lute.

The lonely Petrarch listened, as she sang, so sweet and low, A soft love-laden sonnet, writ by Boccaccio.

Till Cupid s.n.a.t.c.hed the hour-gla.s.s from loitering Father Time, And Petrarch's life was all too short to tell his love in rhyme.

"After the reading, our lady daughter would have me crown the poet, but this I would in no manner consent unto. Nay, I even flung down my lute in vexation of spirit, and ran away to another part of the garden. But I gained nothing thereby, for Giovanni pursued after me and came up with me at the fountain, where he caught my hand and would in no wise restore my freedom till he had delivered his mind of what lay thereon, namely, that he sought me for his wife. Whereupon I told him very plainly that I knew that he had been bred up for the Church, and that it were disloyalty to his brother, your highness's husband, and to his nephew, your son Lorenzo, for him to think of marriage and a worldly life, for by so doing the Medici interest would be divided. But he said that if I would but be his wife he would relinquish all claim to political power and Lorenzo should not fear for his succession, for he would go with me to dwell in foreign parts. And while I sought in the corners of my mind for some answer which should convince him of my utter lothness, and yet not offend so n.o.ble a gentleman, came suddenly your daughter to warn him that others were entering the garden; but ere he went he kissed a rose and tossed it to me saying, 'This rose comes not from Giovanni the Cardinal, but Giovanni the soldier, for henceforth go I to fight the French and to win my bride.'

"Scarcely was he gone than I tore the rose in pieces, wroth that I had been so tongue-tied in his presence. And while I shred the petals all about me, I was aware of Raphael coming to meet me, and holding in his hand a lily such as we see in the pictures of the Virgin, which lily he placed in my hand, saying:

Sicut lilium inter spinas Sic Maria inter filias.

"And as he saw me to tremble with the vexation and the disquiet of my interview with the gay cardinal, he most courteously and gently inquired the cause of my discomfort, and did so comfortably avail to a.s.suage my distress that I presently forgot it. He told me also that since he had known me he had so grown into an affection for the name of Maria, that he had resolved to devote his life, in so far as choice should be vouchsafed him, to the painting of Maria Sanctissima. And many other things he said which it is not meet nor proper that I should write out here. Suffice it that you, who love your dear lord, can well understand my present joyful state, and why it is that the nuns, singing now the canticle for the Feast of the Purification in the convent next to the palazzo, seem to be addressing their song to me:

Gaude, virgo gloriosa!

Super omnes speciosa!

"For happiest of all Virgins is thy little

"MARIA.

"It was this last letter which broke my heart, and yet did not so much break as bend it so that I gave up the hope which I could no longer keep not in bitterness or in wrath, and resigned myself to my destiny as monk and pope; when Maria Bibbiena died, all too early, I wept not my own shattered future alone, but Raphael's as well, and so took him to my heart, though he knew not the reason, and so I beseech the efficacious prayers of all Christians for all true lovers.

"_Et pro n.o.bis Christum Exora._

"GIOVANNI DE' MEDICI, "_The Ghost of the Cabinet._"

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MYSTERY DISCLOSED.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Winnie's romance of the cabinet pleased us all, but Adelaide was sure that Madame would not allow it to be read without certain changes, especially the reference to the robbery in the school, and the "lovering" parts.

"You need not imagine," said Milly, "that because you object to lovering, all the rest of the world does. Why, even Miss Noakes has a softer heart than Adelaide's. But really and truly, Winnie, how much of that is true? Was Raphael really engaged?"

"Most certainly, my dear."

"And did Leo X love her too? You made me ever so sorry for the poor old pope."

"Well, no, that part is the only one for which I have no warrant in history. That is, I have no doubt that Leo X really did love some one before he took the irrevocable vows. He was what Browning calls

'Sworn fast and tonsured pate, plain heaven's celibate, And yet earth's clear accepted servitor, A courtly, spiritual Cupid, And fit companion for the like of you; Your gay Abati with the well turned leg, And rose i' the hat rim. Canon's cross at neck, And silk mask in the pocket of the gown.'"

"The cabinet is such an uncanny old thing," said Milly, "that I begin almost to believe that you have divined the truth, and that an uneasy spirit really haunts its vicinity."

"Perhaps the fact that we now only keep school books in the cabinet is the reason the ghost has been so very quiet of late," said Winnie. "Or, perhaps it has repented its evil deeds and my essay has given it the peace of conscience which only comes through confession. If it were an unrepenting spirit it would, as Milly suggests, be very unwilling that I should publish its evil deeds by reading this essay. I believe that I will give it an opportunity of showing whether it approves of my reading its confessions. Here, Tib, take everything else off your shelf, and I will lay my essay there and call on the spirit to make away with it, if, indeed, he is able and wicked enough to do it."