The Royal Pawn of Venice Part 32

When the first days of the shock of the child's death had pa.s.sed, and the Queen had roused herself to notice those who were anxiously watching her, she asked to be left alone with Dama Margherita: but of the child she would not speak.

"Tell me," she said, "of the saintly Margherita of thine house, the Abbess of San Lazzaro; why left she the world?"

"Dear Lady--beloved Lady"--Dama Margherita pleaded, and would have soothed her; but the Queen would have the story. She laid a hot, tremulous hand on that of her friend and urged her with dry, imploring eyes, as she listened to the tale of the founding of the Abbey of San Lazzaro, while for pity, the tears of Margherita were dropping fast.

"We must turn her from this thought," said Dama Margherita earnestly to the Lady of the Bernardini, as she left the Queen's presence, sorrowfully. "She will not speak of the child; she hath wept no tears; and the fever of her grief, locked within herself, will drive her to madness. She hath asked that Father Johannes be sent for, without delay.

Doubtless it is for this scheme. Doth it seem wise to your Excellency now--while she is in this state?"

"Cara Margherita, should we be slow to obey the will of a suffering soul, for fear of what might chance? The reverend Father is wise for her: if any might bring her comfort, it is he."

Father Johannes Lampadisti had been often with the Queen in the past year, and had become her trusted counsellor, and almoner in many matters relating to the people, so that the guards and servants of the palace knew that when the wild prior of the convent from the mountain of the Troodos appeared in the palace court-yard asking audience of the Queen, he was never to be denied.

"Most reverend Father," she said, stretching out her hand to greet him, yet with no hint of welcome in her wan face, "they have stripped me of every joy; I had thought the Holy Christus and the Blessed Mother of Sorrows had been more kind!"

"Daughter!" he exclaimed, startled at her mood; "cry not out against the will of Heaven, lest thou sin because of thine unendurable anguish."

The words had escaped him, involuntarily, but already he was chiding himself that he could bring her, at such a time, even the shadow of a reproach.

But Caterina was beyond any perception of minor shades of feeling. She answered him in the same pa.s.sionless tone in which she had greeted him, with no suggestion of self-pity, nor any claim for sympathy in her manner, as she motioned him to a seat near her.

"Nay, Father," she said, "in this hath Heaven been merciful: I feel nothing; my heart is a stone. For this I thank the Holy Mother; she knew that I could not bear it, else."

She made the statement simply, as if it implied nothing unusual, and waited for him to speak.

But for once Father Johannes had no words; his eyes grew dim as he looked at the young, pa.s.sive face of the Queen, "stripped of every joy,"

alone on the threshold of life. "Daughter," he said, stumblingly, "I fain would comfort thee."

"Nay, Father," she answered, still without emotion, "there is no comfort. Let us speak of other things."

"Nay, _of this_," he said, with an awkward wave of his rough brown hand, as if he would have put everything else away: and then relapsed into silence, for in the presence of the grief which had mastered her, words seemed to have lost their meaning.

She also waited--as a gray stone might wait by the wayside, unconscious of the lapse of time: for him the moments were quick with thought--for her it was as if they had not been, because life had ended.

"There must be comfort for all sorrow that Heaven permitteth," he protested at last.

She looked at him wondering.

"But not for mine," she said in the same colorless tone. "Thou knowest naught of such sorrow, for thou livest apart from men. Thou canst not know the pain, when thou hast not known the joy."

"Yet from sympathy one may know," he began feebly. But she took no notice of the interruption, and as he looked at her he realized that he had never known life in its poignancy--that he stood outside the depths of human suffering, though he had dwelt forever in its shadow, nor had his stern life measured the height of holy, human joy.

"I left my people and my land," she said, "and came hither for a great love, and that--that"--there was the sound of a sob in her throat as she paused for a moment, then caught her breath and went on in the same even tone,--"and that was taken from me. And now--oh, G.o.d!--my child!"

She strained her arms tightly to her breast and laid her cheek, with a great tenderness upon her thin, white hands, as if her little one were resting there and she sought the comfort of his caress.

Father Johannes turned away his eyes: the low murmur of cooing tones of mother-ecstasy came to him as in a dream. Was the child's angel really there?--He did not know.

"Now, oh holy _Mater Dolorosa_, _Mater Sanctissima_," he prayed within himself.--"I know what thou hast suffered; have mercy!"

There was no longer any sound in the room. She had dropped her arms at her side and had come nearer to him.

"Thou canst not know the depth of human suffering, Father Johannes, for these things enter not into thy holy life--else couldst thou not pa.s.s thy days in prayer and pa.s.sionless meditation."

"Pa.s.sionless!" he cried, and was silent, pressing his hand, unconsciously, against the th.o.r.n.y cross on his breast.

"I have sent for thee again, Father, to ask a question which thou alone canst answer."

She lifted her troubled eyes to his, deep with her question that seemed the more terrible because her quiet voice still showed no trace of emotion.

"Thou, who knowest the ways of G.o.d----"

(He groaned aloud.)

"Hath He stricken me for any sin?"

Then suddenly the pa.s.sion of her question flamed in her white face--she searched his, as if life or death lay in his answer.

From the hand upon his breast the blood trickled in slow drops, while he laid the other upon her head in benediction:

"No--child--no," he gasped; "G.o.d help thee--no!"

"If--if it were for sin of mine," she said slowly, and watching him as if she had not known whether she might trust his words--"might I not leave the world, and take the veil in the Convent of the Holy Cross?"

"Thou?" he cried. "_Thou!_"

"Am I not fit?" she asked. "Is it not for those who suffer and would leave the world?"

He shook his head. "No; thou art beloved of the Holy Mother. The world is thy cross. It is there that thou shalt do thy penance. The Convent is not for thee."

"Father, I have no tears to offer in penance."

"G.o.d asketh not tears if He hath denied them," he answered--his own choking his speech, "but the gift of what He hath given thee--to stand where He hath placed thee and take up thy burden of life."

"Father, I have no strength, nor will."

"They will be sent thee," he answered her.

"G.o.d is not angry with me?" she asked again with sudden pa.s.sion. "Then why--_why_ did He take my child away--my little, little child?--and --_thus_?"

He looked at her startled. Had the terrible rumor reached her which they were striving to keep from her, that the little, royal, innocent life had been the victim of some intrigue--that the sudden, fatal illness had not been sent by Heaven? The rumor had been sifted, and no clue had been found, while yet it might not be wholly dismissed. Yet was the fear of this horror added to the mother's anguish? Nothing but action would save her from madness.

Then suddenly his weakness left him, because of her need; he felt that he must hold her in her place at all costs. He rose and looked down upon her, steadying her by the magnetic strength in his face,--his eyes wild with the intensity of his belief.

"Whom He loveth, He chasteneth," he said. "It is granted thee to know the depth of the meaning of those holy words. The blessed Christus, with great drops of anguish falling from His sacred brows, cried out, 'Can any sorrow be like my sorrow?' G.o.d is not angry with thee, my daughter; but so He fas.h.i.+oneth a soul for His great work. Life is thy cross, my child. Lift it and clasp it--Heaven's peace shall be thine."