The Fool Errant Part 19

"I am speaking to you, carino. I am tired; I want to sleep also. Tell me how to reach the Sagrestia, where the monsters lie sleeping and waking; whisper it, whisper it, and I will kiss you for it." I heard her soothing "Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+" as he stirred. She went on whispering in his ear.

It seemed to me that she was insinuating herself into his dreams. He stirred more than once, turned his head about; every moment I expected to see him open his eyes; but no. As Virginia continued to whisper, he began to murmur in his sleep, she directing him. He answered, laughed softly, turned about, slept always. I saw Virginia kiss his forehead.

Then she came winging back to me; she seemed hardly to touch the pavement. "Come, come. I know the way. The door is open." She flitted away towards the high altar, I following. We gained the ambulatory behind. A door from this stood ajar; Virginia pushed in, I after her. We followed a flagged corridor for some distance and found ourselves in the Sagrestia Nuova with Michael Angelo's monsters sprawling and brooding in the half light. Virginia clasped me in her arms. "Francesco mio, I have saved thee. Sanctuary with thee! Oh, love thy poor Virginia!"

She pressed closely to me, and began to touch and stroke my cheeks; she put her hand at the back of my head, as it were to force my face down to look at her. Touched, excited, amorous in my turn, I encircled her with my arms and kissed her fondly.

"Dearest, best, kindest Virginia," I said, "you have proved my friend indeed. I have much to thank you for, much to say to you. Let us choose a place in which to eat our breakfast; I am as hungry as the devil."

Cruel, abominable speech of mine! I wounded her dreadfully; scalding tears testified to a bruised heart; but to her relief came pride.

"Stop," said she, "you shall not eat yet. I am hungrier than you, whom bread will satisfy. I am famished." I would have made amends, but she drew away from me, and folded her arms. "Let me understand. You kissed me just now. Were you false to Aurelia? Did you intend to insult that girl whom you taught to fear insult?"

I said, No, that had never been my intention, but it had been quite otherwise. "Donna Aurelia," I said, "has been restored to her proper place. She will find salvation where her happiness is, and I have been considering mine, whether I can find it in my happiness also."

"One thing at a time," said she, breathing very fast. "Has Donna Aurelia's husband returned?" I told her that he had not, but that there were good hopes of him shortly.

"And you have said farewell? You are free--free as the air?"

"It is my duty," I told her, "never to see Donna Aurelia again, and I will not if I can help it."

She frowned, then threw up her hands. "I don't understand anything about you! Is this love or madness? You love a lady, who loves you--you find her here--alone--you meet--you speak--you look at each other--you take her by the hand and lead her back to her husband--and tell her that she will never see you again. And she allows it!"

"Not only so," said I, "but it was she who turned her back upon me. And she did rightly."

"Why did she so?" she asked me. I had to tell her that it was on her account.

It made her peer with her eyes, in which, however, a keen light burned.

She took a step towards me; I thought she would be in my arms; but instead she stopped short, breathing fast through her nostrils.

'"Tell me this, tell me this," she said, "was she the fool, or were you?"

I laughed. "My girl," I told her, "if I am a fool it is not for you to say so. But I believe, for all that, that you are paying me a compliment." She did not comprehend me, so took refuge in a quip-- tossing her head at me.

She said, "I wish your wors.h.i.+p joy of my compliment."

I took her. "I intend that you shall do more than wish me joy, child. I intend that you shall give it me, and be my joy."

This altered her tune. She quickly released herself and pointed to the victuals she had risked herself to get. "Let us eat," she said, "and talk afterwards. Forgive me if I troubled you just now. I have suffered and am a little over-wrought. Forgive me."

I kissed her again, she not forbidding me; we put our cloaks below that enormous figure of the Thinker, and sat down to our breakfast; we ate our sausages and drank our wine. Colour came back into Virginia's grave face, light danced in her eyes; she became more herself, but with an excitement latent within her which betrayed itself in little hasty acts of affection, quick movements, half caressing, half petulant--as if she would soothe me, and, half way, change her mood and be minded to scratch. I became interested, I wondered how long she would leave our affairs in doubt; rather unkindly, I held my tongue, just for the pleasure of seeing her make the next advance. And then--in spite of my curiosity--fatigue began to creep over me. I had been thirty-six hours awake, had bid an everlasting farewell to a mistress, restored, or done my best to restore, a banished wife to her husband's arms, shot a man, saved a virgin's honour, made matrimonial advances, run for my life.

Here was a good day and a half's work. After a profusion of yawns, which, try as I would, I could not stifle, I said, "Forgive me, my dear, if I go to sleep. I find myself mortally tired--and you must be in the same case. Let us lie down here and rest ourselves."

"Sleep, my lord, sleep," said she, with beautiful, tender seriousness, and spread my cloak on a bench for me. She took off my sword and knelt, as her custom of old had been, to kiss my hand. I felt then that I must needs love this loving child. I lifted her up, and, "Kneel no more to me, my girl," I said. "You and I are ruined together. I cannot obey my father, who will disinherit me. You are no better off. Hunted animals don't kneel to each other, but league themselves to face their persecutors. Virginia, be mine!"

She said nothing, and would not meet my eyes. I drew her to me, embraced her with my arm, kissed her cold lips.

"Do you know what I am doing, Virginia?" I said. "Do you know what I need of you, my only friend?"

"Yes, Don Francis," she said. "You are making love to me, and it is your right. I have never refused you, and never shall. But you must not ask me to marry you."

If I were nettled, it was because a man, having made up his mind, is not willingly thwarted--for no other reason. But I do not know that I can accuse myself even of so much. I did not let her go, nor did I cease to kiss her. I told her, I believe, with as much calmness as is possible under the circ.u.mstances, that I was perfectly determined; I said that she need have no fear of the future, even though in taking me she would take no such fortune as I ought to offer to my wife. She flamed up at this and cried out that she wanted no fortune and had never led me to believe it. "Well and good, child," I replied, "in that case you need have no fears at all, for I, on my side, can ask you to admit that I have given you no reason to suppose me a villain. If I take you and all that you have, believe me I shall give you in return my mind and affection as well as the respect and grat.i.tude which you have already.

Believe me, Virginia--"

She moaned and rocked herself about. "Oh, I love you so! Oh, do not tempt me--oh, my lord, my lord, what shall I do? Oh, Madonna purissima, help me now!" I caught her to my heart.

"Virginia! as beautiful as you are true, you are worthy of a better love than mine," I cried. "But a more tender love you will never have.

Friend, saviour, dear and faithful, beloved companion, I need you-- come!"

She struggled faintly to put me away. She withheld her lips by averting her head; but I caught at her wrists and held her arms to her sides. By- and-by she let me have my will, and gave me kiss for kiss. I had won her; she was mine utterly from that hour.

"My lord and my love," she said, "you have conquered me. I will be yours in the manner you desire. You may be humbling yourself, but you are exalting me. Have no fear--I will make you happy. Ah, but how I will work for you! You have never seen me work yet! I am your servant still-- your faithful servant."

"We shall serve each other, I hope, my child," I said. "There will be work for me to do also. But what is immediately before us is to escape from Florence."

Virginia got up. "Sleep you here, my soul, I will go out and see how the land lies. Before morning I will see you again." She clasped me to her bosom and kissed me fondly, then went quickly out, as swift and salient in her joy as a keen wind of spring that carries health in its forceful pride. I slept profoundly until daylight, little knowing what her immediate errand was.

CHAPTER x.x.x

I MARRY AND GO TO LUCCA

Virginia was pleased to be very mysterious on the subject of our marriage, keeping me in the Sagrestia for three or four days, visiting me only to give me food and such news as she cared to impart. She told me, for instance, that Professor Lanfranchi had undoubtedly arrived in Florence, and that he was staying with Aurelia at the Villa San Giorgio.

As to our own affair, she said that everything was in good train. She had found a church and a priest in the Ghetto; she would need a little money--not very much--and promised, directly the coast was clear, to get me over to that safe quarter. To be done with this part of my history, so she did, and was made mine in the church of Sant' Andrea on October 24, 1724, three years, almost to a day, since my arrival in Padua in 1721. I took her back to a mean lodging in that meanest part of Florence, and spent three days with her there alone. I then wrote to my father, as I felt bound in duty to do--fully, unreservedly, with candour and, I hope, modesty. I wrote to Father Carnesecchi, to Professor Lanfranchi. Such money as I could consider mine by right I converted into cash; the rest, which I thought to be my father's--being that share of my monthly allowance which I had received after I had decided to disobey him--I returned by bills of exchange to his London bankers. I believe that, on the day of my departure from Florence, I stood up possessed of some fifty guineas--no great capital upon which a man and his young wife could begin the world. Nor had I any great idea how I should increase or husband my little store. But I was young, zealous, proud. I believed in myself, I loved Virginia. In a word, as always happened to me, I looked studiously forward, and was happy. As for her, she hardly touched the ground with her feet when she walked. You never saw so radiant a creature.

We left the Ghetto at a good hour of the morning, intending for Lucca; but at the gate of San Frediano a difficulty about post-horses bade fair to detain us for a day in very unfortunate publicity. The man of whom we had bespoken them met us there with despair upon his face. He was vexed, he was harrowed, his nicest feelings of honour were wounded--at least he said that they were. The horses had been fed and watered; he was about to put them to, when an order which he dared not disobey had supervened.

No less was this than a precept from the Pratica Segreta that the horses were to be put at the disposition of the Cavaliere Aquamorta, of whom the State was most anxious to be rid. Had it been anything under a Government order, said he, he would have laughed in the bearer's face.

Not even the Grand Duke could make an honest man break his word, &c.

&c.; but I could see he was helpless. I saw nothing so clearly as that I was. I expostulated, offered more money than I could afford. Virginia stormed. All to no purpose. I was for walking, and was about to command Virginia to accompany me, when who should appear but my gentleman himself, the Cavaliere Aquamorta, inquiring the cause of the uproar. He presented a truly magnificent appearance in that squalid place.

No sooner was he informed that he was the cause of our distress than he addressed himself to me with elaborate politeness--all the more singular as that my appearance and equipage contrasted most unfavourably with his. My clothes had not been improved by the adventures I had undergone; my linen was soiled; I had no baggage. Virginia was respectably dressed and looked beautiful, but had no pretensions to a rank which she did not possess of herself and which I did not propose to give her. For I had thought it only honourable in me, as I was dispensing with my father's injunctions, to dispense also with his money. I had renounced the world in which I had gained nothing but misery and crime. In this fine gentleman's eyes, therefore, I must have seemed a simple young artisan, and Virginia a pretty country girl. However, he begged to be of service to us. He was himself going to Lucca, he said. If he took our horses it was only fair we should take seats in his chariot. In fine, we should hurt him deeply if we did not. All this was put before me with so much frankness and good humour that I could not well refuse it. I saw, moreover, that in addition to my horses he had two of his own. I accepted his offer, therefore, with many thanks. He handed Virginia in with a bow; he begged me to precede him, which I did, but to the back seat. He took the place next my wife, and we left Florence.

"If," said this remarkable man, "I lay it down as an indispensable preliminary to our acquaintance, which I hope may be long and warm, that you accept me for a gentleman, it is because, as I do not happen to be one, I have devoted all my energies to demonstrating the exact contrary.

No man can help the accident of his birth. My mother was an actress of Venice: G.o.d knows who was my father, but I tell myself that he was peculiarly mine. I was educated in the slips of the theatre of San Moise; at ten I ran away from home, and from the age of twelve made my fortune my own care. It was then that I found out the advantages of being what I was not, for I observed that while n.o.body scrupled to cheat a gentleman if he could safely do it, n.o.body (on the other hand) resented the fact that a gentleman cheated him. At the age of fifteen, when I served in Zante in the company of the n.o.ble Mocenigo, and received a decoration for gallantry and a commission of lieutenant, I killed my captain for permitting himself to doubt my gentility. I should be sorry to have to reckon how many more have gone his way, or for how many years I have been obliged to shed blood in every new State I have chosen to inhabit. Those days are past and over; my reputation is made; this order which I wear was presented to me by the Holy Father, and is at once my patent and my pa.s.sport. If I need another, it is here." He pointed to his sword, which reposed upon a narrow ledge of the chariot, behind my back.

I then told him a difficulty of my own, which was that, although I was a gentleman by birth who had waived his rank for reasons unnecessary to be named, I had no pa.s.sport into the Republic of Lucca. "I think it right to inform you, cavaliere," I added, "that I also found it necessary to shed blood in Florence, and that consequently I have left that city somewhat abruptly and without a pa.s.sport. I should be sorry to put you to any inconvenience on my account, and a.s.sure you that you have only to express a doubt--a hint will be enough--to be relieved of me and my wife at our first baiting-place."

He clasped my hand, saying, "I like your frankness--it pleases me vastly. And I see that I can help you. I have a very commodious pa.s.sport which will pa.s.s your charming lady, yourself and half a dozen children-- if you had been so precocious as to have them. Let us talk of more pleasant things than my magnanimity, if you please; the subject is naturally familiar to me."

This Cavaliere Aquamorta--he had the Order of the Golden Spur from his Holiness--was a tall spare man of a striking, if truculent, presence, with a high forehead, prominent eyebrows, densely black, cheekbones like razors, a complexion of walnut, and burning dark eyes. He carried his head high, and punctuated his vivacious utterances with snorts and free expectoration. He was, as I had seen at once, very much overdressed; his jabot was too full, he had three watches, ring-laden fingers, not unduly clean, and no less than five snuff-boxes, which he used in turn. He had certain delicate perceptions, however, which I must do him the justice to record; for if he was overdressed, I (G.o.d knows) was not, and yet not one glance of his penetrating eyes was turned in my direction which was not of deference and amiability. He treated me in every respect as if I had been his equal in appearance, address and fortune. His gallantry to Virginia would have been, I thought, excessive if displayed to any woman in the world. Before we had gone a league he had hold of her hand, to ill.u.s.trate a story he was telling us of an intrigue he had had with the Princess of Schaffhausen. "I took her Highness' hand--thus," says he, and took my wife's. "'Madame,' I said, 'upon the honour of Aquamorta, the affair, having gone so far, must go all lengths. Logic and love alike demand it.'" The story was long; by the end of it, it was to be seen that he still held Virginia's hand. Indeed, he held it more or less until we stopped at Empoli to dine; and when we returned to the carriage, if I may be believed, this knight of the Spur resumed possession, and (as if it had been a plaything) nursed, flourished, flirted, made raps with my wife's hand until we were near the end of the day and within a few miles of the frontier of Lucca. Then at last he released it, kissing it first--popped his head out of the window, looked about and started, gave a prodigious Ha! cleared his throat, spat twice, and sat down again.

He looked at me pleasantly but with penetration. "We have arrived at the dreadful field of Altopascio, where Castruccio Castracane cut up the Florentine legions," says he, "and now, friend, your trials begin. My dear Signor Francis, believe me that I shall never forget the honour you and your charming lady have done to the equipage and solitary splendour of Aquamorta, nor the many marks of confidence and esteem you have both shown me throughout our delightful journey. Unhappily, so far as you are concerned, dear sir, it is over for a while. It will be necessary for you to leave us. My pa.s.sport"--he produced it--"is made out for the Cavaliere Aquamorta, his lady, and servants. Your plan, therefore, will be to mount the box. I would take your place and give you mine, but that I am too well known to be supposed my own lacquey; nor could my sensitive honour brook it if I were. I would offer you my cloak, again, but that I fear it would betray you. It is perhaps a little out of key with the rest of your apparel. Better, after all, take one of those rascals'. For the next few hours you are Fritz, remember--Fritz from Buda Pesth; and I," he cried with a sprightly air, "am the happy, the indulged possessor of the most lovely of women." Again he kissed Virginia's hand. Deeply annoyed as I was, there was nothing for it but to obey; and it was under these by no means dignified circ.u.mstances that I entered the Republic of Lucca for the first time.

Worse was to follow--much worse. The man was without conscience in exacting from me the uttermost farthing of the bargain. Arrived at the inn, where, it seemed, he had already bespoken the whole of the first floor, he led Virginia upstairs with the greatest deference, hat in hand, past the bowing landlord and all his array of scullions, maidservants, lacqueys, porters and cooks; and took no more notice of me than he had done of the horde of beggars at the door. Full of indignation, I started to follow him, but his body-servant, an a.s.sured rogue if ever there was one, stopped me with a firm grip of my elbow.

"Softly, comrade, softly," says he. "They won't need you yet awhile.

When hot metal is on the anvil my master is accustomed to strike."

"What do you mean, you rascal?" I cried; and he, still holding my arm, "Why, my fine man," says he, "since you won't take a hint, I must deal plainly with you." As we were then at the foot of the stairs, he suddenly wheeled me to the right about, and plunged me into the crowd of inn-servants. "Landlord," cried he, "take this fellow in and give him his hire on my master's account. 'Tis a runaway gaolbird by the look of him for whom we have no sort of use here. A few pauls will be handsome."