Tales from Blackwood Volume Viii Part 9

That long black hair which flowed in ringlets down a neck so full and white! Those fair round arms and polished throat--these are charms to live, and still have power, long after the transient red and white, which charms the first observer, is familiar! Could he behold his mistress--so young and beauteous still--so soon to be resigned for ever--now before him, and not forget that any other woman lived, on whom he ever had bestowed a thought? not feel that, without her life--her love--her safety--life--all the world--to him, would be no longer worth possessing?

The Countess gazed upon her lover as he knelt; and she, too, for a long s.p.a.ce, gazed without speaking; for with her, far less than even with Di Vasari, was there that full indulgence of grief which soothes and satisfies the heart: but her thoughts were those of doubt--and fancied wrong--and wounded pride--and pa.s.sion scorned or slighted. Fierce as had been the paroxysms which that day had convulsed and shaken her; bodily pain, and mental suffering; her pride still towered over all; her beauty showed untainted! Scorning death in his triumph; hating his approach, yet smiling on it; never more carefully than in that hour--her last of life--had the Countess's toilet been adjusted. Her force of mind, and feverish heat of purpose, rose even above the anodynes which gave her a temporary release from personal suffering. Excited as she already was by pa.s.sion, almost to frenzy, the very narcotics which should have deadened the brain's action, turned to stimulants, and served only to add new fury to its purpose. Her cheek had lost its tint of freshness. Her eyes, that glistened with tears repressed, had something of wildness in their expression. And her lips had faded from their ruby hue. But, other than this, her beauty was still uninjured; all her features were full and animated; it was scarce possible to contemplate her as a being who in a few hours should cease to move--to think--to have intent--existence.

At length the Countess spoke. Her hand lay pa.s.sive in her lover's grasp.

But it was cold--damp--and nerveless--trembling;--it suffered, not returned, his ardent pressure. "You would see me once more then, Lorenzo?" she said; and her words were uttered with pain and difficulty.

For though her features remained unmoved, her eyes were blind with tears; and the tone of her voice was more terrible in its hollow, wilful steadiness, than if she had at once resigned the contest, and given way to the storm of grief that overwhelmed her.--"You have left Arezzo, and safety, and your new bride that shall be, to watch the last moments of one who can now no more be worth your thinking of; but who, whatever may be the faults she has to answer for, dies for one only, Lorenzo,--the fault of having loved you!"

The Chevalier's cheek was paler even than that of the Countess. His voice was drowned with sobs--he could not speak--the words choked him in their utterance. He lifted his face from the velvet covering in which it had lain buried--he clasped his hands together;--the hand of the Countess fell from his grasp.--"And is there then," at last he said, "oh G.o.d!--is there then, Angiolina, indeed no hope?"

"For me, Lorenzo," said the Countess, "there is no hope. Worlds could not purchase for me another hour's life. We meet now for the last time!

You are ill, Lorenzo,--you have travelled far--I should not have sent to you--I trouble you too much. But I am going on a long journey--a travel from which I shall not return. I am a weak creature--too weak--but I am dying. Bless you, Lorenzo, for thinking of me this once! I shall die now content--content and happy. For I shall not have seen him, for whom I sacrificed both life and honour--while I still lived--devoted to another."

Avarice, ambition, terror, may have mercy; but there is one pa.s.sion lurks within the human breast, whose very instinct's murder. Once lodged within the heart, for life it rules--ascendant and alone! Sports in the solitude like an antic fiend; it feeds on blood, and rivers would not sate its appet.i.te. Minds strongest in worth and valour stoop to meanness and disgrace before it. The meanest soul--the weakest--it can give courage to, beyond the daring of despair! What is the sting which no balm can a.s.suage? What is the wound that death alone can heal? What is the injury that--once done--can never be repaired? whose is the sword that, once when drawn, the scabbard must be cast away for ever? When is it that man has no ear but for the tale that falls like molten lead upon his brain; no eye but for the plucked-out heart of him he hates; no hand but for that clutch--that one last clutch--which earth may not resist--that gripes his dagger? Who is it that bears about him a life, horrible to himself, and dangerous to the world? Who has been wise, yet now will cast away reason?--was kind and pitiful, yet mimics the humanity of the wild dog? Who is it hews his foe to mammocks; writes "Acquittal" on his tomb--and dies? Who is it that stabs, yet will not blame; drinks--as his draught of life--another's blood; yet feels there is but one relief--to shed his own? That wretch is JEALOUS! Oh! talk not of remembrance--consciousness beyond the grave!--once sleeping, let the jealous never wake again! Pity him, whatever his crimes! Were they ten thousand fathom past the reach of mercy, they are punished. The gamester whose last piece is lost--the merchant whose whole risk the sea has swallowed up--the child whose air-bubble has burst,--may each create a bauble like the former! But he whose treasure was in woman's love; who trusted as men once trust, and was deceived!--that hope once gone! weep--search--regret--despair--seek thyself blind--there is again no finding--no restoring it! Woman! symbol of woe, and nature's weakness! gamester of hope and happiness! thy love must be integral--single--perfect--or be nothing. Like the gla.s.s toy that has amused thy childhood, entire it sparkles, s.h.i.+ning, bright, and precious; but from the farthest thread--the finest--break off but one fibre--it is gone--form--shape--design--material--substance! That flaw has s.h.i.+vered it to countless atoms; and where the jewel was, a heap of dust, which men despise and trample on, alone remains!

"Lorenzo!" said the Countess, in a hurried tone,--"Lorenzo, a chill is creeping over me. It is cold now--cold as the grave--I feel that I am dying. It is terrible, Lorenzo, to die so young! You will pray for me, though you have ceased to love me? Think of me, once more--only once--when Perline di Francavilla is your happy bride. Do not let her triumph too far; but think of me even on your bridal day, one moment, before you forget me for ever. For then, oh, Lorenzo--then--I shall be a thing fit only to forget. A poor, pa.s.sive, nameless thing, beyond the reach of memory or sensation. And the tears of my friends, and the triumph of my foes, will be alike; for they will both be unknown and unnoticed by me."

"Angiolina!" cried the Chevalier, "if you would not destroy me quite, have mercy!"

"Have you not now come from Arezzo, Di Vasari?"

There are moments in which, even to serve its need, the heart revolts from falsehood.--There was no answer. "Have you not daily seen Perline di Francavilla there? Have you not--perjured as you are--have you not pledged your false heart to her?"

"Then, never--by all my hopes in heaven!" exclaimed the Chevalier, urged almost beyond self-control; and changing his tone from that of sorrow almost into one of injury and recrimination--for if his conscience did not entirely acquit him of blame, yet neither was he guilty in the extent to which he was accused.--"Forced, by your own command--would I had never listened to it!--to quit Florence, chance more than purpose led me to Arezzo. If I have seen Perline di Francavilla there,"

continued the speaker--and here his voice did falter something--"it has been only in that common intercourse, which the long connection of our houses rendered unavoidable. But your token said, that you were in sickness--in danger--What was Perline, then, or all the world, to me?

Am I not here to save--to perish for--Angiolina--to perish with you?

For why should one live on, who now can live only to a sense of wretchedness! If I had wronged your trust--say that I had been light and thoughtless--he trifles with the richest gem in fancied safety, who hugs his treasure close, and feels its value when its loss is threatened.

Angiolina, you have wronged me. You will regret to have done so; but my errand shall be fulfilled. I came to aid--to avenge--or perish with you."

The words of the Chevalier were wild; but he spoke them heartily, and his manner was sincere. For the outward act too--it was at some hazard--and the plague still raging--that he had returned to Florence.

It was at some hazard that he stood, even at that moment, unaided, and almost unarmed, within walls where but a whisper of his name would have armed an hundred swords against his life. But Perline di Francavilla lived!--the Countess saw but that--would live and triumph--when she should be no more--despised--forgotten. The helplessness--the hopelessness--of all defence against such a consummation--the very sense of that helplessness seemed to exasperate her almost to frenzy.

Eagerly grasping her lover's hands, her action seemed to demand the repet.i.tion of his promise. But the words which should have expressed the demand were wanting. A sudden, but sinking change was taking place in the lady's appearance--the poison had run its course; and the crisis of her fate was approaching.

Slowly drawing her hand across her brow, as if to clear the mist that made her vision indistinct, she seemed anxiously to search out some object, which the fading sight had scarcely strength enough to reach.

At that moment, a dial, which faced the feet of the couch on which she lay, struck, with its shrill bell, the first hour of the morning.

The stroke seemed to fall upon the Countess, and paralyse her remaining faculties.

"Angiolina!" cried the Chevalier, springing from the floor--"Angiolina!

speak, for mercy's sake! Angiolina!--she is dying!"

His attention was quickly called to his own safety: a footstep as he spoke approached distinctly through the corridor.

"Angiolina!" He started to the door by which he had entered. "Ruin and despair!" it was closed without--it would not open.

The footsteps came on still. Why, then, there was but one hope--his dagger was in his hand.

The Lady Angiolina heard--she saw what was pa.s.sing. She moved--she pointed. No--it was wrong--not there! She made a last effort--she _spoke_, once more. "_Yonder_, Lorenzo--_There--there!_"

It was but the advantage of a moment. The curtains of the couch on which the Countess was lying parted the coming and the going guest. The light fall of the swinging door by which the new visitor entered the chamber, echoed the heavy drop of that which had shut the Chevalier from view.

It was not the Count di Arestino whose approach had created this alarm, but that which followed made the presence of his Lords.h.i.+p speedily desired. The female who entered the chamber found her mistress lying insensible, and in a state which left little doubt of her immediate dissolution. From that moment the Countess lived nearly two hours, but she never spoke again. Her confessor came. He pressed the cross to the lips of the expiring lady, and some said that she shrank from it; but the most believed that she was insensible, and the last absolution of the dying was administered. The Count Ubaldi stood by his wife's bedside. He wore no outward semblance of excessive grief. It might be that his heart bled inwardly; but he scarcely dreamed who had knelt on that same spot so short a time before him.

"It was at the bell of one," said Giuletta, in a low voice to her companion, "that my lady desired me to waken her. And when I came, as the clock struck, I found her even alone, and thus."

As she spoke, the shrill tongue of the dial once more struck the hour of two. A slight struggle agitated the features of the Countess at the sound! she clasped her hands as if in prayer, or from some suddenly excited recollection.

In another moment the source of all the anxiety expressed around was at an end. The domestics yet wept; the confessor still bent with the sacred image over his penitent; the Count Arestino still gazed coldly on--upon what? It was not upon his wife--for the Countess Arestino was no more.

CHAPTER III.

"For though he 'scaped by steel or ball, And safe through many a peril pa.s.s'd, The pitcher oft goes to the well, But the pitcher comes home broke at last."

The judges of Florence were met, and there were crowds round the gate of the Palazzo di Governo; for a criminal, sentenced to death that day, was to suffer the torture before he underwent his final doom.

Of what crime had the prisoner been guilty? He was a common robber, guilty of a hundred crimes, for any of which his life was forfeit. But there was one charge to which, guilty or not guilty, he refused to plead; and as a disclosure was important, he was to be racked to induce him to confess.

On the morning of the Vigil of St Luke it was that Lorenzo di Vasari had quitted Arezzo. His journey had been taken on the sudden, and no one had been acquainted with its object. Various circ.u.mstances in the manner of his departure led to the inference that his absence was to be a short one; and yet two months had elapsed since he had so departed, and intelligence of his course, or of his safety, his family had none.

It was strange--and men declared it so--where the Chevalier Lorenzo could be hidden. He had been traced to Florence. On that dark night, and in those deserted streets, when he felt most sure no eye beheld him, he had nevertheless been seen, mounted on his black horse, and followed by his servant, first pa.s.sing the column of Victory in the Via di Repoli, and afterwards halting in conference upon the Ponta St Trinita.

But those who had seen the travellers as they paused upon the bridge, were themselves night prowlers, digging after hidden spoil in the Jews'

Quarter, and they had not watched them, for they had business of their own, more urgent, to attend to. It was recollected that they had at length ridden off westwards, in the direction of the Porto Pisano; but with that movement all traces both of master and attendant ceased.

Now this disappearance was strange; and except that there had been foul play in some quarter, what other solution could be imagined for it? Why had the Chevalier Lorenzo first quitted Florence? It was not from fear of the plague, for he had returned in the height of it. And when was it that he had so returned--himself to disappear so strangely? when but on the very night, and almost at the very hour, that the Countess Arestino had died! The belief of all made the duty of none. Men might suffer wrong, and never know they suffered it; or they might be wronged, and yet sit down contented. But yet the Count Ubaldi, by those who knew him, was scarcely numbered as one who would so sit down; and there had been a rumour once, though it had pa.s.sed away, which joined the name of the Chevalier di Vasari too closely with that of the Lady Angiolina. And had Lorenzo's true kinsman, the soldier Carlo, lived, less doubt had drawn his sword for vengeance or for explanation.

But "true Carlo" was dead--your honest men are ever so--dead in the wars of Germany and Spain. And Gonsalvo di Vasari, the last relative and next heir, seemed less curious to revenge his kinsman's death than to inherit. No man in Florence doubted Gonsalvo's courage, but still his dagger slept in its sheath. It might be he believed his cousin had taken no wrong; or it might be that--take the worst to be proved--his conscience whispered he might have juster cause of quarrel. But week after week elapsed, and even month after month; and though all concluded the absent Lorenzo to be dead, yet no certain tidings even of his death could be obtained, so that the t.i.tle to his large estates remained in abeyance. The disappearance of the servant Jacopo, too, seemed more puzzling to many people than any other part of the affair. When one morning, about ten weeks after the absentees had been lost sight of, and while men were still debating whether they had been swallowed up, horses, arms, purses, and all, by some local earthquake, or translated suddenly to the skies, and there converted into constellations, as a great mob was sweeping over the piazza Santa Croce, conducting a robber, who had just been condemned, to the place of execution, a citizen, whom accident or curiosity had drawn close to the person of the culprit, suddenly exclaimed, that "he wore a cloak which had belonged to Lorenzo di Vasari!"

"Holy Virgin! will you not hear what I say?" insisted the person who thus stopped his fellow-creatures on their pa.s.sage to the other world.--"Should I not know the cloak, when I made it myself?" he continued. Which was at least so far likely to be true, that the spokesman was a tailor.

"But the man is going to be hanged, and what more can you have if he had stolen fifty cloaks?" replied the superintending officer, giving the word that the cavalcade, which had halted, should again move forward.

The chief party (as one would have thought) to this dispute--that is, the prisoner who sat in the cart--remained perfectly silent; but the interruption of Nicolo Gozzi bade fair, nevertheless, to be overruled.

For the culprit was no other than the famous Luigino Arionelli, or, as he was surnamed, "Luigino the Vine-dresser," who had been the terror of all Florence during the period of the plague; and a great many people had come out to see him hanged, who were not disposed to go home disappointed of the ceremony. And the provost, too, who commanded, was well disposed to get rid of the interference, if he could; for since the law had resumed its powers, despatch (in matters of justice) was rather the order of the day. The disorders which had to be regulated were many and dangerous; and the object being to get rid of such as suddenly as possible, a good many of the delays which were used to lie between the commission of crimes and their final punishment had been agreed to be dispensed with. So that, upon the whole, Signor Gozzi's remonstrances were generally treated as impertinent; and it was a moot point, whether he did not seem more likely to be personally added to the execution, than to put a stop to it; when luckily there came up a servant of the house of Di Vasari, attracted by the uproar, who identified the cloak in question, not merely as having belonged to the Chevalier Lorenzo, but as being the same which he had worn on the night of his disappearance.

This strange declaration--backed by a recollection that Gonsalvo di Vasari's interests must not be treated lightly--decided the commander of the escort in favour of delay; and the culprit, who had been observed to pay deep attention to all that pa.s.sed, was reconducted to prison. When questioned, however, both casually in his way back to the jail by the officer of justice, and formally, afterwards, by Gonsalvo di Vasari himself, he maintained a determined silence. A sort of examination--if such it could be called when no answers were given--was prolonged for several hours; but no further facts were discovered; and not a word, either by persuasions or menaces, could be extorted from the prisoner.

In the end, the chief judge, the Marquis Peruzzi, to whose daughter Gonsalvo di Vasari was affianced, suggested that time should be given for consideration, and that--Arionelli being retained in close confinement--all proceedings should be staid for four days. This recommendation was agreed to, not because it was the course which any one desired to take, but because it was the only course, under the circ.u.mstances, which seemed open. Arionelli was then shut up anew under close caution. Gonsalvo di Vasari and his friends betook themselves to study how they might hunt out fresh evidence; or, against the next day of examination, work upon the prisoner so that he should confess. And the gossips of Florence had enough of employment in discussing the singular providence which had at last led to the detection of the Chevalier's murderer, puzzling what could be the object of his present silence, and disputing whom his disclosures would impeach.

"Bring in the prisoner," said the presiding judge.

The day of examination was come, and the judges had taken their seats in the Palazzo di Governo. The Gonfaloniere, the Marquis Peruzzi, sat as president, with Gonsalvo di Vasari and the Count Arestino, both as members of the Council. Two secretaries, with writing implements before them, sat at the head of a long table placed below the president's chair; and a few ushers and inferior retainers of the Court, distinguished by their robes and wands, waited in different quarters of the apartment. But no other members of the Council than those already described were present, for the affair was one rather of individual than of general interest; and the heads of Florence were still too much engaged with private calamities and difficulty, to have any more leisure to spare than was absolutely necessary for the service or direction of the public.

"Let the prisoner be brought in!" said the Marquis Peruzzi.