The Duchess of Trajetto Part 17

"The outward garb has little to do with inward woe, d.u.c.h.ess," said Vittoria, severely, "else I had worn weeds for ever"--and she plunged into her pocket for her handkerchief.

"Well, and so should I have done, Marchioness," said Giulia. And then they both burst into tears.

"Oh, Giulia," said Vittoria, in a stifled voice, after crying some time, "why _will_ you try me so?"

"Why, you began," said Giulia. And then they embraced, like Brutus and Ca.s.sius; and Vittoria's good and kindly nature recovering its ascendancy, she said with her charming smile:

"I really thank you, Giulia, for upsetting me, for I have wanted the relief of a good cry for some time."

"You dear thing," said Giulia, kissing her--"that was just my feeling too."

So, after this little squall, there was bright suns.h.i.+ne. And as this was only a day or two before the 17th of August, when the Emperor was expected to land on his return from Africa, Vittoria proposed to Giulia that they should witness the procession together from the balcony of a friend's palace in the best situation.

Giulia said half reluctantly, "I don't affect such worldly scenes much--"

"Nor do I, certainly," said Vittoria. "But yet I should like to show my loyalty to the Emperor; and the scene will not be a mere show, but will have a kind of historic interest; and will doubtless figure hereafter on the historic page. So that, if I go, surely you may."

"Ah, well, we will go together," said Giulia, who really liked the idea.

So these two ill.u.s.trious ladies were among the fairest of the fair whose eyes "rained influence" on the gay pageant; and, the same evening, the staid, sober Emperor left the banquet early, and sought out the widow of his brave though not blameless general, Pescara; and he liked her so well, that the following year, when he and she were in Rome, she was almost the only lady whom he condescended to visit.

On the present occasion, Giulia was with her; and something happening to be said by the Viceroy, Don Pedro di Toledo, who accompanied the Emperor, about her roses having paled in consequence of her vexatious lawsuit, Charles inquired into it, and in his dry, succinct way, desired Don Pedro to see to it, and let the affair be adjusted. So, when the Emperor was gone, the Viceroy undertook the investigation of the rival ladies' claims; and the result was, that he advised the d.u.c.h.ess to be satisfied with her ample dowry, and the addition made to it by her husband.

This did not content Isabella, who laid claim to thirteen thousand ducats for pin-money, and required that a judicial disposition she herself had made should be declared void! She offered, as a set-off, to give up five hundred ducats per annum to Giulia; but again changed her mind. So that Giulia, nearly worried out of her life by this unreasonable woman, again appealed to the Emperor, who deputed a commission of three members of his council to give judgment as the case required. This unpleasant affair extended through great part of another year.

Nothing brings out the unromantic features of human nature so unpleasantly as a lawsuit. Giulia was in a constant turmoil; and she lacked those leadings to a better life, which Ochino might have afforded her; for he had been summoned to Venice by Cardinal Bembo, who was anxious to hear him.

This cardinal was not a good man, though I suppose there are good cardinals now and then; however, he was at least a distinguished man and a great scholar. And being an epicure in pulpit eloquence, he wrote to Vittoria Colonna, begging her to use her known influence with Fra Bernardino, to induce him to preach at Venice during the ensuing Lent.

Vittoria complied with his behest; and Ochino consequently went to Venice, where the impression that he made may be judged-of from the following pa.s.sage in a letter from the Cardinal to the Marchioness:

"I send Vossignoria notes of Fra Bernardino's sermons, to which I have listened with a pleasure I cannot express. Certainly, I never heard so capital a preacher, and I cannot wonder at your estimation of him. He discourses in quite another manner from any one I have ever heard; and in a more Christian spirit; bringing forward truths of the utmost weight, and enforcing them with loving earnestness.

Every one is charmed with him: he will carry away all our hearts."

And again:

"I write to you, Marchioness, as freely as I talk to Fra Bernardino, to whom I this morning opened my whole heart. Never have I had the pleasure of speaking to a holier man. I ought to be now at Padua, on account of a business which has engaged me all the year, and also to get out of the way of the constant applications with which I am a.s.sailed on account of this blessed cardinalate; but I could not bear to lose the opportunity of hearing some more of his excellent sermons."

And again:

"Our Fra Bernardino, whom I must call mine as well as yours, is at present adored in this city. There is not a man or woman who does not cry him up to the skies. Oh, what pleasure! oh, what delight, oh, what joy has he not given! But I will reserve his praises till I see Vossignoria, and meantime pray G.o.d to prolong his life for the glory of the Lord and the good of man."

What a pity that this enthusiasm was so short-lived! Ochino was soon afterwards chosen Director of the Capuchins. His influence over his brother friars was then great; and many of them, before they were well aware of it, became imbued with the reformed opinions. Purgatory, penance, and papal pardons crumbled and fell before his powerfully wielded hammer, the doctrine of justification by faith.

Side by side with him laboured Pietro Martire Vermigli, who possessed more scholars.h.i.+p, and who, while Ochino filled the pulpit, furthered the same cause by delivering lectures on the Epistles of St. Paul. Many monks, many students, many n.o.bles attended these lectures. At length their tone became so different from that of the Church, that the Viceroy interdicted him from preaching and lecturing. But Pietro Martire appealed to Rome, and obtained the removal of the interdict.

CHAPTER XVII.

ISCHIA.

Giulia was recruiting her health, meantime, at Vittoria's charming island-home of Ischia,

"Where nothing met the eye but sights of bliss."

--where a graceful simplicity, indeed, reigned, but under the regulation of the purest taste,--where duties, softened into pleasures, filled up every hour; and where leisure, never degenerating into laziness, was alternately dedicated to poetry, music, and painting, to the enjoyment of the most exquisite beauties of nature, to the cultivation of the mind, and to offices of charity and devotion. Among the poets and eminent men who here "invoked the muses and improved their vein," and who helped to make this remote rock famous, were Musefilo, Filocalo, Giovio, Bernardo Ta.s.so, and many others. Bernardo Ta.s.so thus sang the praises of this charmed islet--

"Superbo scoglio, altero e bel ricetto Di tanti chiari eroi, d'imperadori, Onde raggi di gloria escono fuori, Ch' ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto, Se per vera virtute al ben perfetto Salir si puote ed agli eterni onori Queste piu d'altre degne alme e migliori V'andran che chiudi nel petroso petto.

Il lume e in te dell' armi; in te s'asconde Casta belta, valore e cortesia, Quanta mai vide il tempo, o diede il cielo.

Ti sian secondi i fati, e il vento e l'onde Rendanti onore, e l'aria tua natia Abbia sempre temprato il caldo e il gelo!"

Nor did younger and gayer poets want younger and gayer beauties to inspire them than the two n.o.ble widows; for Vittoria's household comprised six or eight n.o.bly-born girls who were being trained under her eye, and whom her conscientiousness prevented from turning over to the sole superintendence of the Mother of the maids.

"You might take more interest than you do, Giulia," said she, "in the education of your damsels. It would do them good, and you, too."

"Ah, nothing could be more tiresome to me," said Giulia. "I am most happy to leave them to Donna Caterina!"

"I doubt, however," said Vittoria, "whether we have even the right to keep fellow-creatures about us, of like affections and pa.s.sions with ourselves, without providing some legitimate outlet for them, or supplying them with sufficient motives for their restraint."

"My girls seldom go into pa.s.sions," said Giulia; "and I should think it impertinent to inquire into their affections."

"Why now, you incorrigible Giulia, did not you tell me of your fits of suppressed laughter while you were overhearing (actually eaves-dropping) that love dialogue between Tebaldo and Isaura? and of your laughing at her to her face, afterwards, in the presence of the other girls?"

"I gave her a pearl necklace," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Not till she married, months afterwards."

"Well, I own I let myself down on that occasion."

"As to letting yourself down, it is your keeping yourself up that I complain of--"

"O, what a beautiful b.u.t.terfly!--"

"My dear Giulia, _don't_ run after it and put yourself in a fever. You are not quite a child now!"

"No, but I was a child once; and when I was a child-d.u.c.h.ess of thirteen, I thought that if I did not keep my maids at a distance, they would not respect me. And my mother's word had always been, 'Never a.s.sociate, child, with servants.'"

"Servants and slaves, that may apply to very well," said Vittoria, who had not surmounted cla.s.s-prejudices, "but your maids-of-honour are well-born, and though for a time they occupy subordinate positions, eventually they will marry respectably, it is to be hoped."

"And that hope is enough to enliven them, I suppose," said Giulia. "My dear Duke said to me, very soon after our marriage: 'Pargoletta!'--you know he loved to call me 'pargoletta,' or 'animetta,' or 'dolce alma mia,'--he said, 'Pargoletta, don't have much to say to your maids; they are light and frivolous, and will do you no good.' And I loved to obey him; and I love to obey him still, for he was a wise man."

"They might do you no good, but you might do them great good now," said Vittoria.

"O, my dear, that set have long married off, and had their portions--so many ducats, a bed, bedding, and ewer and basin."

"The new set, then--"

"Here's a strawberry, I declare," said Giulia, diving into the leaves on the bank upon which they were sitting. "Do have it!"