CHAPTER VII
Two Interviews
After Ludovico had passed into the sitting-room in the Via di Porta Sisito pay his visit to Bianca, Quinto Lalli prepared to leave the house inaccordance with her suggestion that he should dispose of himselfout-of-doors for the present. But before going he called Gigia the maid,and said, as he stood with the door in his hand:
"Gigia, cara mia, the Marchese Lamberto is coming here presently; justmake use of your sharp ears to hear what passes between him and Bianca;and take heed to it, you understand, so as to be able to give an accountof it afterwards if it should be needed. You need not say anything aboutit to la bambina till afterwards; I have no secrets from her, you know,and, as soon as the Marchese is gone, you may tell her that you haveheard everything, and that I directed you to do so; but better to saynothing about it beforehand. Inteso?"
"Si, si, Signor Quinto! Lasci fare a me!"
And, with that, the careful old man went out for his walk, and it wasnot half-an-hour after Ludovico left the house before the Marchese madehis appearance.
Bianca, now having completed her toilette, started from her sofa, andwent forward to meet him with both hands extended, and with one of hersunniest smiles.
"This is kind of you, Signor Marchese. I hoped, ah! how I hoped, thatyou would come. If you had not, I don't know what would have become ofme. My heart was already sinking with the dreadful fear that my littlenote might have displeased you. But, thank God, you are here: and thatis enough."
"Of course, Bianca, I came when you begged me to do so," said theMarchese, looking at her with a sort of sad wistfulness, and retainingboth her hands in his. He advanced his face to kiss her, and she stoopedher head so as to permit him to press his lips to her forehead.
"Was it of course, amore mio?" she said, with a gushing look ofexquisite happiness, and a little movement towards clasping his hand,which still held hers, to her heart. "Was it of course that you shouldcome to your own, own Bianca when she begged it? But you are lookingfagged, harassed, troubled, mio bene: have you had anything to vex you?Henceforward, you know, all that is trouble to you is trouble to me. Ishall insist on sharing your sorrows as well as your joys, Lamberto.What is it that has annoyed you, amore mio?"
"I have much on my mind--necessarily, Bianca mia; many things that arenot pleasant to think of. Can you not guess as much?"
"I have had but one thought, amico mio, since I heard from your lips thedear words that told me that henceforward we should be but one; that ourlives, our hopes, our fears, would be the same; that, in the sight ofGod and man, you would be my husband, and I your wife. Since then, Ihave had but one thought, and it is one which would avail to gild allothers, let them be what they might, with its brightness. Is the samethought as sweet a source of happiness to you, my promised husband?"
"That's clear enough, I hope," thought Gigia, outside the door, toherself. "Che! If nothing had been said the other day, that would beenough; and I think Quinto might trust nostra bambina to manage her ownaffairs. She knows what she is about, the dear child: not but that it isa good plan to be able to remind a gentleman in case he should forget.Gentlemen will forget such things sometimes."
"You cannot doubt my love," said the Marchese, in reply to her appeal.
Those five words may possibly, in the course of the world's history,have occurred before in the same combination. But the phrase served theoccasion as well as if it had been entirely new and original.
"Indeed, I do not, Lamberto; nor will you again, I trust, ever doubtmine as you seemed to do last night. Ah, Lamberto! you do not know howbitterly I wept over the remembrance of those cruel words when I hadparted from you. You will never, never say such again. Tell me you neverwill."
"Doubts and fears, my Bianca, are the inevitable companions of such alove as mine," said the Marchese, with a somewhat sickly smile; "but thefew words you said last night sufficed to dissipate them, as I assuredyou."
"But there is still something troubling your mind, Lamberto. See, Ialready take the wifely privilege you have given me to wish to share allthat annoys you. What is it? Come and sit by me here on the sofa, andtell me all about it."
And then the Marchese sat himself in the seat of danger that had beenproposed to him, and, in a certain degree, explained to Bianca thedifficulties attending a marriage with her. He tried hard to recommendto her favourable consideration the plan of a secret marriage--of amarriage to be kept secret, at all events, for awhile for the present;but such an arrangement, as may easily be understood, did not, inBianca's view, meet the requirements of the case. That was not what shewanted. It may also be easily understood that the Marchese, occupyingthe position which the enemy had assigned to him, carried on the contestat an overpowering disadvantage, and was finally routed, utterlyconquered, and yielded at discretion.
On her side the advantages of the situation were made the most of withthe most consummate generalship. The limit between that which waspermitted to him, and that which was denied to him, was drawn with afirmness and judgment admirably conducive to the attainment of the endin view. He was permitted to encircle the slender, yielding waist withone arm as he sat by her side on the sofa, and to retain possession ofher hand with the other; but any advanced movement from this base ofoperations was firmly and unhesitatingly repressed. At one moment, whenthe attacking party seemed to be on the point of pressing his advanceswith more vigour than before, it chanced that the Diva coughed; and itso happened that, in the next instant, Gigia entered the room, bringingwood for the fire in her arms--a diversion which, of course, involvedthe execution of a hurried movement of retreat on the part of the enemy.
The whole of Bianca's tactics, indeed, were admirable. And the resultwas, as usual, victory. Once again, as long as he was in her presenceand by her side, the unfortunate Marchese felt that the spell wasirresistible--absolutely irresistible by any force of volition that hewas able to oppose to it. Once again it seemed to him that the onlything in the world that it was utterly impossible to him to relinquishwas the possession of Bianca. The hot fit of his fever was on him in allits intensity; and there was nothing that he could do, or suffer, orundergo that he would not rather do, or suffer, or undergo than admitthe thought of giving her up. It really seemed as if there were somephysical emanation from her person--some magnetic stream--somedistillation from the nervous system of one organization mysteriouslypotent over the nervous system of another, which mounted to his brain,mastered the sources of his volition, and drew him helpless after her,as helplessly as the magnetized patient obeys the will of hismagnetizer.
Suddenly both of them heard one o'clock strike from the neighbouringchurch. To the Marchese it was a knell which, with horrid warning-note,dragged him forcibly back from his Circean dalliance to the thoughts,the things, and the people whose incompatibility with the possibility ofsuch dalliance was driving him mad. It was the hour at which he hadpromised to wait upon the Cardinal. It was absolutely necessary that heshould go at once; and he tore himself away from that fatal sofa-seatwith a wrench, and a reflection on the purpose of his visit to theLegate, which seemed to him really to threaten to disturb his reason.
Slinkingly he stole from the house in the Strada di Porta Sisi, andhurried to the Cardinal's palace. His mind seemed to reel, and a coldsweat broke out all over him as he rang the bell at the top of the greatstone stair of the Legate's dwelling.
This business that he was now here for--those high honours which wereabout to be lavished upon him--would they not all make his position somuch the worse? The higher he stood, would not his fall be the moreterrible? What would be said or thought of him? At Rome, immediatelyafter the high distinction shown him, what would they not say? Here, inRavenna, how should he look his fellow-citizens in the face? Impossible,impossible. Could he venture even to accept the high distinction offeredto him? Would there not be something dishonourable--a sort of treacheryin suffering this mark of the Holy Father's special favour to bebestowed upon him, while he was meditating to do that whi
ch, if hisintention were known, would make it quite impossible that any suchhonour should be conferred on him?
And how fair was life before him, as it would be if only this fatalwoman had never crossed his path? And was it not even yet in his ownpower to make it equally fair again? Was it not sufficient for him towill that it should be so?
What if he never saw Bianca again? What could avail any nonsense she orher pretended father might talk of him? If they were to declare on thehouse-tops that he had promised marriage to La Lalli, what human beingin all the city would believe them? The very notion that such a thingcould be possible would be treated as the impudent invention of peoplewho clearly had not the smallest knowledge of the man they wereattempting to practise on. No, he had but to will it to be free. If onlyhe could will it.
And with these thoughts passing through his mind he entered thereceiving-room of the Legate.
It was impossible to be received more cordially than he was by that highdignitary. His Eminence felt sure that his old acquaintance andhighly-valued good friend the Marchese was aware how great his (theCardinal's) pleasure had been in discharging the duty that had devolvedupon him. The letter he had that morning received from the CardinalSecretary was a most flattering one. Perhaps he (the Cardinal) mighttake some credit to himself for having performed a friend's part, as wasnatural, in keeping them at Rome well acquainted with the singularmerits of the Marchese. He would, indeed, have been neglecting his dutyif he had done otherwise.
Then, after alluding lightly and gracefully to the special interest hecould not but feel, in his private capacity, in any honour which tendedyet more highly to distinguish a family with which he trusted his ownmight at no distant day be allied, he told the Marchese that it wasprobable that nothing would be done in the matter till after Easter.
It was the gracious wish of the Holy Father to enhance the honourbestowed by conferring it with his own apostolic hand; and, doubtless,as soon as Lent should be over, it would be intimated to the Marchesethat the Holy Father was desirous of seeing him at Rome. When he cameback thence his fellow-citizens would, in all probability, wish to mark,by some little festivity or otherwise, with which he, on the part of thegovernment, should have great pleasure in associating himself, theirsense of the honour done to their city in the person of its mostdistinguished citizen.
The Marchese, while the Cardinal Legate was making all these graciouscommunications, strove to look as "like the time" and the occasion as hecould. At first it was very difficult to him to do so at allsatisfactorily. The influence of that other interview, from which he hadso recently come, was too strong upon him. All the images and ideascalled up by the Cardinal's words were too violently at variance, andtoo incompatible with those other desires and thoughts to affect himotherwise than as raising additional obstacles and piling up more andmore difficulties in the path before him. But, as the interview with thecourteous and dignified churchman proceeded,--as the genius loci of theCardinal's library began to exert its influence--as all the hopes andambitions and prospects which were opened before his eyes, falling intotheir natural and proper connection of continuity with all his formerlife, so linked the present moment with that past life as to make allthat had filled the last few weeks seem like a fevered dream,--graduallythe Marchese entered more and more into the spirit of the Cardinal'sconversation. Gradually all that he had hitherto lived for came to seemto him again to be all that was worth living for. Old habitual thoughtsand ideas, the growth and outcome of a whole life, once again assertedtheir wonted supremacy; and the Marchese Lamberto marvelled that itshould be possible for that to happen to him which had happened to him.
Ah! if only weak men were as prone to run away from temptation as theyare to run away from the difficulties that are created by yielding toit. But they are ever as brave to run the risks of confronting thetempter, as cowardly to face the results of having done so.
The Cardinal had not failed to mark the air of constraint and dispiritedlassitude which had characterized the Marchese during the commencementof their conversation. And he, as others had done, attributed it to thesupposition that the Marchese was very rapidly growing old--likelyenough, was breaking up. Nor did he less observe the very notable changein him as their interview proceeded--the result, as the churchmanflattered himself, of the charms of his own eloquence and felicitousmanner. He was himself a good twenty years older than the Marchese; buthe had been put into great good humour that morning by private lettersaccompanying the official despatch that has been mentioned, which hadhinted at favourable possibilities in the future as to certain ambitioushopes that had rarely failed to busy his brain every night as he laid iton the pillow for many a year. So he smiled inwardly a gentle moralizingsmile as he thought how gratified ambition had power to stir up theflagging passions and stimulate the sinking energies even as the goldenbowl is on the eve of being broken.
The Marchese, however, left the Cardinal's presence a much happier manfor the nonce than he had entered it, his mental vision filled withpictures of ribbons, stars and crosses, with, perhaps, a statue--betweenthe two ancient columns in the Piazza Maggiore would be an excellentsite--in the background.
Ah! if only he could have had the courage to run away from temptation.