A Siren

  CHAPTER IX

  Paolina's Return to the City

  There remained now but one day more of that Carnival, which remainedmemorable for many years afterwards in Ravenna, for the terriblecatastrophe that marked its conclusion.

  All that these people, whose passions, and hopes, and fears have beenlaid open to the reader, were doing during those Carnival weeks wasgradually leading up, after the manner of human acts, to the terribleevent which rounded off the action with such fatal completeness. And thecatastrophe was now at hand.

  During the reception at the Castelmare palace on that night of the lastday of Carnival but one, the white domino, whom Ludovico had rightlysupposed to be Bianca--a guess which had been shared by many otherpersons in the room--had pretty exclusively occupied the attention ofthe Marchese Lamberto. And it must be supposed that the resolution wasthen taken between them which led to the summons of Signor Fortini, thefamily lawyer, to the palazzo on the first day of Lent, as was relatedin the first book of this narrative. It was on the morning of AshWednesday, it will be remembered, that the lawyer had received from theMarchese the formal communication of his intention to marry theSignorina Bianca Lalli.

  The reader knows, also, that what took place in the interval between thenight of the reception at the Palazzo Castelmare and the morning of thefirst day in Lent was not calculated, as might have been supposed, toassist in bringing the mind of the Marchese to a final determination tothat effect. The terrible degree to which his jealousy and anger hadbeen excited on the night of the ball at the Circolo by Ludovico andBianca will also not have been forgotten. The conduct which had awakenedthat jealousy was, in a great measure, if not entirely, innocent on thepart of both the offenders, as the reader will also, no doubt, remember.The similarity of the costume adopted by the Marchesino and Bianca wasentirely accidental. And this, trifling as the circumstance may seem,had contributed very materially to arouse the Marchese's wrath andjealous agony. Bianca, perhaps, under the circumstances, ought not tohave danced as frequently as she did with the Marchesino. She at leastknew that the Marchese Lamberto had already conceived the most torturingjealousy of his nephew. Ludovico, on his part, was of course utterlyunconscious that he was giving his uncle the remotest cause for umbrageby his attentions to the successful Diva.

  Then came the little tete-a-tete supper--tete-a-tete by accident ratherthan by design, as the reader may remember; and the officious andspiteful eavesdropping and tell-tale denunciation by the angry poet.

  Nevertheless, and despite of all these circumstances and of the temperof mind in which he quitted the ball-room that night, it is certain thatthe Marchese did, on the morning of the following Ash Wednesday, sendfor his lawyer and announce to him formally his intention to make theSignorina Bianca Lalli his wife.

  We have seen all the agonies of irresolution and indecision--all thealternating swayings of his mind, as passion or prudence predominated atthe moment. He seemed utterly unable to bring himself, save fitfully, tothe final adoption of either line of conduct. And yet, at the momentwhen his jealousy most furiously boiled over, he decided on taking thefirst overt step towards the accomplishment of the deed.

  Was it possibly that he was urged irresistibly forwards by the fear thatif he did not at once make the prize he so eagerly coveted irrevocablyhis own, the power to make it so might pass away from him? that, afterall, his nephew might have found the goddess as irresistible as he hadfound her himself; and that she might prefer the younger to the olderMarchese di Castelmare?

  Whatever the reflections might have been that at last drove him to takethe definitive step of applying to his lawyer, we know that they werenot of a pleasant kind--that the state of the Marchese's mind wasanything but a happy or peaceful one during the hours that preceded hissending the message to Signor Fortini.

  The manner in which the lawyer received the communication made to him,and his determination, on further consideration, to make the MarcheseLudovico at once aware of the step contemplated by his uncle, will nothave been forgotten. The reader will, it is hoped, remember also how,sallying forth after his early dinner for this purpose, Signor Fortiniencountered the Marchese Ludovico in the street; how the lattercommunicated to the old lawyer the state of anxiety he was in about theSignorina Bianca Lalli, whom he had lost in the Pineta; and finally howthe lawyer and the Marchese together had gone to the Porta Nuova, bywhich the road leading to St. Apollinare and to the Pineta quits thecity, in order there to make inquiries,--and the terrible reply to theirinquiries that there met him.

  What that reply was had not been immediately clear to the lawyer. For,as far as the circumstances of the previous events were then known tohim, there were two persons, Bianca Lalli, the singer, and PaolinaFoscarelli, the Venetian artist--two young girls missing, who were bothknown to have been out of the city in that direction that morning; twoyoung girls of whom he knew little more than this, that they hadapparently reason to feel a deadly jealousy of each other. Which ofthese two was the one whose dead body lay there under the city gatewaybefore him, he had no immediate means of knowing. For Ludovico, who hadraised the sheet that covered the features of the dead, and had, ofcourse, become on the instant aware of the truth, had fallen intounconsciousness, without uttering a word beyond the one agonized outcrythat, for the moment, had left little doubt on the mind of the lawyerthat the victim at their feet was the girl Paolina.

  But, of course, the means of setting at rest the doubt on the lawyer'smind were very soon at hand; at hand even before Ludovico recovered fromhis short fainting fit. For the same man among the Octroi officers, whohad recognized La Lalli when she had passed with Ludovico in themorning, was now able to say that the woman who now lay dead in thegateway was in truth no other than the poor Diva.

  Paolina, in fact, was by that time safe at home, and had been wellscolded by Signora Orsola for having given her such a fright by playingthe truant for so long.

  Of course her old friend called upon her for an account of the hourswhich had elapsed during her prolonged absence. And Paolina, in reply tothis demand, gave a very intelligible account of the time. Butunfortunately, most unfortunately, as the sequel showed it to be, thisaccount rested solely on her own statement. Of course old Orsola saw notthe smallest reason for doubting any part of it. And the explanationswhich she gave of her movements, and of the motives which led to them,embodied in the following statement of what happened from the time whenshe left the church to the time when she re-entered the city, are theresult of her subsequent declarations, when called upon to account forher occupation of those hours.

  The aged Capucine friar had, as we know, watched her take the path thatled to the farmhouse on the border of the wood. And having looked afterher as long as she was in his sight, he sighed heavily, and, turningaway, went back to his prayers in the church. But had he been able towatch her on her way a few minutes longer, he would, if the girl's ownaccount of her movements were correct, have seen her change thedirection of her walk.

  About half-way between the eastern end of the church, by which the paththe friar had indicated to Paolina passed, and the farmhouse on theborder of the forest, another path, skirting what had once apparentlybeen the cemetery attached to the church, turned off at right angles tothe left, so as, after some distance, to rejoin the road on its waytowards the city. And this path, according to her own account, Paolinatook; thus abandoning her intention of reaching the forest at the spotwhere the farmhouse stood. Why had she thus changed her purpose?

  Various thoughts and feelings, which had presented themselves to her inthe space of the minute or two she had occupied in walking round to theeastern end of the church, had contributed to produce this change in herpurpose.

  Unquestionably the first feeling which arose in her mind, on seeing whatshe had seen from the window of the church, was one of jealousy. But shecombated it vigorously; and if she did not succeed in altogetherconquering it,--that fiend being, by the nature of not to be vanquishedso by one single effort, however valorous--at le
ast put it to the routfor the present. She had known all along that Ludovico frequently saw LaBianca. She knew that he would meet her at the ball; and, doubtless, theobject of their expedition this morning was, as the friar had suggested,to show the stranger the celebrated Pineta. Having thus, in somemeasure, tranquillized her heart, she began to think how lovely theforest must be on that fine spring morning; how much she, too, shouldlike to see it; how good an opportunity the present was of doing so.Perhaps, too, there was some little anticipation of the slightpunishment to be inflicted on her lover, when he should be told that shehad visited the Pineta alone at the very time when he had been in herimmediate vicinity engaged in showing it to another.

  And with these thoughts in her head, she made her inquiries, and startedon her way. But before she had walked many steps, other thoughts beganto present themselves to her mind. How did she know how far they hadgone from the farmhouse? Might they not still be in the immediateneighbourhood of it? Might she not, very probably, fall in with them?And would not that be exceedingly disagreeable? Would she not have allthe appearance of having followed them purposely from motives ofjealousy? Would not her presence be unwelcome? Would there not besomething of indelicacy even in thus following one who evidentlypreferred being with another?

  These considerations sufficed to produce the change in her purpose, andin the direction towards which she turned her steps, that has beenmentioned. So she returned by the path, which has been described, intothe road, and proceeded along it on her return to the city. She did nottrip along as briskly and alertly as she had done in coming thither; butwalked slowly and pensively with her eyes on the ground. She was thus agood deal longer in returning than in going. And when she had reachedthe immediate neighbourhood of the city, she turned aside beforeentering the gate, into a sort of promenade under some trees near thecity wall, and sat down on one of the stone benches there to think alittle.

  And presently; as she was busy thinking, she was startled into muchdispleasure against herself by discovering that two large utterlyunauthorised tears were running down her cheeks.

  What was the meaning of that? Surely she was not jealous still, afterall the good reasons for not being so, that she had so conclusivelypointed out to herself?

  No, she was not jealous. She would not be jealous. But it would havebeen so nice in the Pineta. The sun was now high in the heavens. Thebirds were singing on every tree; and Ludovico was enjoying it with thatwoman, whom, when she had seen her at the theatre, she had found it soimpossible to like or to tolerate. Yet she would not, could not, doubtthat Ludovico loved herself, and her only.

  She dried her tears, and determined that she would not let doubts ofwhat she really did not doubt torment her. But still she sat on and onupon the bench in the shade musing on many things--on the ContessaViolante, on the steps Ludovico had said that he would take this veryfirst day of Lent towards the open breaking off of all engagement withthat lady, and on the amount of scandal and difficulty that would thencearise.

  Then her fancy, despite all her endeavours and determinations to thecontrary, would go back to paint pictures of the beauty of La Bianca, asshe sat by the side of Ludovico in the little carriage. How lovely shehad looked, and how happy,--so evidently pleased with herself, with hercompanion, and with all about her. And Ludovico had seemed in such goodspirits--so happy, so thoroughly contented. He did not want any one elseto be with him. He was far enough from thinking of the fond and faithfulheart that would have been made so happy--oh, so happy--if it had beengiven to her to sit there by his side.

  She sat thinking of all these things till she was roused from herreverie by the city clocks striking noon. It was three good hours laterthan she had supposed it to be; and she jumped up from her seat,intending to hasten home to Signora Orsola Steno.

  All this Paolina stated partly to Signora Orsola on her return home, andpartly in reply to inquiries subsequently made of her by inquirers farless easily satisfied.

  But chance--or, what for want of a better designation, we are in thehabit of so calling--had decreed that Signora Orsola should not bedelivered from her suspense so quickly.

  On turning into the shady promenade under the city walls, a littlebefore reaching the Porta Nuova, Paolina had strolled onwards, beforesitting down on one of the benches that tempted her after her walk, tillshe fancied that it would be shorter for her to reach the Via di SantaEufemia by another gate, which gave admission to the city at the otherend of the promenade, instead of by turning back to the Porta Nuova. Andthus, though she had in truth returned to the city, the men at that gatewere quite right in their statement that she had not returned by the waythey guarded.

  The road, however, by which Paolina proposed to return to her home ledher past the residence of the Cardinal, and, as she passed, it occurredto her that it would be well, and save another walk, to look in at thechapel and put together the things she had left in it on finishing hertask there, so that they might be ready for a porter to bring away whenshe should send for them.

  For this purpose she ascended the great staircase of the Cardinal'spalace, and was at once admitted to pass on into the chapel, as a matterof course, by the servants, who had become quite used to her visitsthere; and, from this point forwards, the accuracy of her statements waseasily proved by other testimony besides her own.

  It would not have taken her long, as she had said to herself, to get herthings together and make them ready for being fetched away. But in thechapel she found the Lady Violante on her knees on the fald-stool beforethe altar. It was the first day in Lent, and, accordingly, a period ofextra devotion. The sins, the excesses, the frivolities, of the Carnivalhad to be atoned for by extra prayers and religious exercises; and ifViolante had herself been guilty of no sins, excesses, or frivolities,during the festive season, yet there was abundant need of her prayersfor those who had.

  On hearing a light footfall behind her she looked round; and, on seeingPaolina, rose from her knees, and advanced a step to meet her.

  "You are come to take away your things, cara mia. The scaffolding hasalready been removed. I suppose you are very glad that your task here isdone; and it would be selfish, therefore, to say that I am sorry. Howoften it happens, Paolina, that we are tempted to wish what we ought notto wish."

  "I don't think, Signorina, that I often wish what my conscience tells meI ought not to desire; and I should have thought that such a thing hadnever occurred to you. I wished very much to do something this morning,and I began to do it; but then I thought that I ought not to do it, andI did not."

  "Then, my child, you are all the happier. It is a happy day for you."

  Paolina sighed a great sigh, and dropped her eyes to the ground.

  "Then I suppose the evil wish was not wholly conquered," said Violante,looking into her companion's eyes with a grave smile.

  "It was this, Signora: I walked out very early this morning to St.Apollinare in Classe, where I am to make some copies of the Mosaics,which I hope to begin to-morrow. A scaffolding has been prepared for me;and I went to see that all was ready."

  And then poor little Paolina was tempted to pour out all her heart andits troubles to her gravely kind and gentle friend. And Violante spokesuch words of comfort as her conscience would allow her to speak in thematter. And the talk between the two girls ran on; and the minutes ranon, too. And poor old Orsola Steno, at the end of her stock of patienceat last, had taken the step that has been narrated.

  And thus it had come to pass that Paolina had played the truant, andthat her protracted absence had led to Signor Fortini's momentary doubtas to the identity of the corpse he had seen brought into the city.

  BOOK V

  Who Did the Deed?