A Siren

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

  CHAPTER V

  "The Hours passed, and still she came not"

  There was misgiving in the heart of the old man as he stood at the doorof the Basilica looking after the light little form of Paolina as shemoved along the path, raised above the swamp on either side, that ledtowards the edge of the forest.

  The rays of the sun slanting from the eastward lighted up all the pathon which she was walking; and though the western front of the church wasstill in shade, had begun to suck up the mists, and to make the air feelat least somewhat more genial and wholesome. The monk pushed back thecowl of his frock, which had hitherto been drawn over his head, thebetter to watch the receding figure of the girl as she moved slowlyalong the path; and still, as he gazed after her, he shook his head fromtime to time with an uneasy sense of misgiving.

  It was not that the mere fact of the girl's entering the Pineta aloneseemed to him, accustomed as he was to the place and its surroundings,to involve any danger to her of any sort, beyond, indeed, thepossibility of losing herself for a few hours in the forest. The wholeextent of it is very frequently traversed by the men in the employmentof the farmers to whom the Papal government was in the practice ofletting out the right of pasturage and management of the wood. And thesepeople were all known. There were, it is true, encroachers on theserights, who might well be less known, and less responsible persons; andpossibly the forest paths might sometimes be traversed by people boundon some errand of smuggling. But nothing had ever happened of late yearsin the forest to suggest the probability of any danger.

  It was rather the nature of Paolina's own motives for her expedition, asthey were patent to the old monk, that disquieted him on her behalf. Hehad marked the expression of her face when she had seen the bagarinowith Ludovico and his companion pass along the road towards the forest,and the change in her whole manner after that. And monk, andoctogenarian as he was, he had been at no loss to comprehend the natureof the emotions which had been aroused in her mind by the sight. And hefeared that evil might arise from the collision of passions, which itseemed likely were about to be brought into the presence of each other.

  Perhaps, monk and aged as he was, the apprehensions with which his mindwas busy seemed more big with possible evil than they might to another.Perhaps it was so long since he had had aught to do with stormy passionsthat the contemplation of them affrighted his stagnant mind all the moreby reason of the long years of passionless placidity to which it wasaccustomed. Perhaps he had known passions stormy enough in the long longpast, and had experience of the harvest of evils which might be expectedto be produced by them.

  Report said, that when Father Fabiano had been sent by his superiors tooccupy the miserable and forlorn sentinel's post at the church-door ofSt. Apollinare, amid inundations in winter, and fever and ague insummer, his appointment to the dreary office had been of the nature of apenance and an exile. It was said, too, that the sentence of exile,which placed him in his present position, had been an alleviation of amore rigorous punishment; that he had been allowed, after a period ofmany years of imprisonment in a monastery of his order at Venice, tochange that punishment for the duty to which he had been appointed, andwhich would scarcely have seemed an amelioration of destiny to any onesave a man who had for years been deprived of the light of the sun andthe scent of the free air. Some deed there had been in that life whichhad called for such monastic discipline; some outcome of human passionwhen the blood, that now crept slowly, while the aged monk passed thehours in waiting for visions before the altar of St. Apollinare, wasrunning in his veins too rapidly for monastic requirements.

  It was evident from the few words that he had let drop, when he becameaware who the young Venetian visitor to the church under his care was,that some special circumstances caused him to feel a more than ordinaryinterest in her. Some connection there must have been between someportion of his life and that of some member or members of her family. Ofwhat nature was it? Monkish tribunals, however else they may treat thosesubjected to them, at least keep their secrets. Frailties must beexpiated; but they need not be exposed. And the true story of the faultwhich condemned Father Fabiano to end his days amid the swamps of St.Apollinare, as well as the precise nature of the connection which hadexisted between him and Paolina's parents, can be only matter ofconjecture.

  Paolina, as has been said, pursued her path slowly. She had trippedalong much more lightly on her way from the city to St. Apollinare. Andyet she was urged on by a burning anxiety to know whither Ludovico andBianca had gone, and for what purpose they had come thither. But,despite this nervous anxiety, she stepped slowly, because her heartdisapproved of the course she was taking. It seemed as if she was drawnon towards the forest by some mysterious mechanical force, which she hadnot the strength to resist. Again and again she had well nigh made upher mind to turn aside from the path she was following. She would goonly a few steps further towards the edge of the forest. She looked outeagerly before her, standing on tip-toe on every little bit of vantageground which the path afforded. She would only go as far as that nextbend in the path. But the bend in the path disclosed a stile a littlefurther on, from which surely a view of all the ground between the pathshe was on and the farmhouse at which Ludovico and his companion haddescended, might be had. She would go so far and no further. And thus,poor child, she went on and on, long and long after the monk had lostsight of her, and with a deep sigh, had turned to go back again into thechurch.

  It had been six o'clock when Paolina started on her walk to the church,and nothing had been settled with any accuracy between her and the oldfriend and protectress, with whom she had come to Ravenna, and livedduring her stay there, as to the exact time at which she might beexpected to return. The name of the protectress in question was SignoraOrsola Steno, an old friend of her mother's, who, when PaolinaFoscarelli had been left an orphan, had, for pure charity andfriendship's sake, taken the child, and brought her up. Latterly, by theexercise of the talent inherited from her father, Paolina had been ableto do something, not only towards meeting her own expenses, but towardsmaking some return for all that the good Orsola had done for her out ofher own poverty. And now this commission of the Englishman who had senther to Ravenna would go far towards improving the prospects of bothPaolina and her old friend.

  Old Orsola did not know exactly at what time to expect Paolina back; butshe knew that Paolina's purpose on that Ash Wednesday morning was merelyto walk to the church, and, having seen the preparations that had beenmade for her work, to return, without on that occasion remaining tobegin her task. So that when the hour of the midday meal arrived, andher young friend had not returned, old Orsola began to be a littleuneasy about her.

  Nor was her uneasiness lessened by her entire ignorance as to therebeing little or much, or no cause at all for it. Never having leftVenice before in her life, old Orsola was as much a stranger in Ravenna,and felt herself to be in an unknown world, as completely as anEnglishman would in Japan. Since she had been in Ravenna she hadfrequently heard the Pineta spoken of, and the old church out there inwhich her young friend was to do a portion of her task. But she hadheard them both mentioned as strange and wild places, not exactly likeall the rest of the world. And the old woman felt, that, for aught sheknew, this Pineta, and the old church in the wilderness on the bordersof it, might be a place full of dangers for a young girl all by herself.

  And as the hours crept on, and no Paolina came, her uneasiness increasedtill she felt it impossible to sit quietly at home waiting for her anylonger. She must go out, and--do what? The poor old woman did not in theleast know what to do; or of whom to make any inquiry. The only personwith whom the two Venetian strangers had become at all intimate inRavenna was the Marchese Ludovico. And the only step in her difficultywhich old Orsola could think of taking, after much doubt and hesitation,was to go to the Palazzo Castelmare, and endeavour to speak with theMarchesino. The letter of introduction, which they had brought from theEnglish patron, was addressed to the Marchese Lamberto. But theacquaintance o
f the Venetians with him had remained very slight; andOrsola felt so much awe of so grand and reverend a Signor, that it wasto the nephew only that she thought of applying.

  So, not without much doubt and misgiving, the old woman put on herbonnet and cloak and made the best of her way to the Castelmare palace.There she found a porter lounging before the door, to whom she made herpetition to be allowed to speak to the Signor Marchese Ludovico.

  "My name is Orsola Steno," said the old woman humbly, a little in awe ofthe majestic porter, chosen for that situation for his size; "and theSignor Marchesino knows me very well. I am sure he would not refuse tosee me."

  Insolent servants in a great house are generally a sure symptom ofsomething amiss in the moral nature of their masters. Good and kindlymasters have and make civil and kindly servants; and the big porter ofthe palazzo Castelmare was accordingly by no means a terrible personage.

  "Signora Orsola Steno! To be sure. I remember you very well, Signora,when you called on the padrone last summer. I am sure the SignorMarchesino would have pleasure in seeing you, if he were at home. But heis not here. And to tell you the truth, we have no idea where he is. Hecame home early this morning after the ball, and instead of going tobed, changed his dress, and went out again at once; and has not beenback since. Some devilry or other! Che vuole! We were all young onceupon a time, eh, Signora Orsola? And as for the Marchesino, he is asgood a gentleman as any in Ravenna or out of it, for that matter. But heis young, Signora, he is young! And that's all the fault he has. Can Igive him any message for you, Signora?"

  "The fact is," said old Orsola, after a few moments of rapid reflectionas to the expediency of telling her trouble to the porter, and adecision prompted by the good-natured manner of the man, and by the poorwoman's extreme need of some one to tell her trouble to,--"the fact is,that I wanted to ask the advice of the Signor Marchesino about a youngfriend of mine, the Signora Paolina Foscarelli, who went out of the cityearly this morning to go to St. Apollinare in Classe, and ought to havebeen back hours ago. And I am quite uneasy about her."

  "Why, your trouble, Signora, is of a piece with our own," said theporter, with a burly laugh; "and it seems to me like enough we can helpeach other. You miss a young lady; and we miss a young gentleman. When Iused to go out into the marshes a-shooting with the Marchese, we used tobe sure, when we had put up the cock bird, that the hen was not far off;or, if we got the hen, we knew we had not far to look for the cock. Doyou see, Signora? Two to one the pair of runaways are together; andthey'll come home safe enough when they've had their fun out. I dare saythe Signor Marchesino and the Signorina you speak of are old friends?"

  "Why, yes, Signore. For that matter they are old friends!" repliedOrsola, adopting the porter's phrase for want of one which could expressthe meaning she had in her mind more desirably.

  "To be sure--to be sure. And if you will take my advice, Signora, youwill go home, and give yourself no trouble at all about the young lady.Lord bless us! what though 'tis Lenten-tide? Young folks will be young,Signora Orsola. They'll come home safe enough. And maybe I might as wellsay nothing to the Signor Marchesino about your coming here, you know.When folks have come to that time of life, Signora, as brings sense withit, they mostly learn that least said is soonest mended," said the oldporter, with a nod of deep meaning.

  And Signora Orsola was fain to take the porter's advice, so far asreturning to her home went. But it was not equally easy to give herselfno further trouble about Paolina. It might be as the porter said; and ifshe could have been sure that it was so the old lady would have beenperfectly easy. But it was not at all like Paolina to have planned suchan escapade without telling her old friend anything about it. She feltsure that when Paolina said she was going to St. Apollinare to lookafter the preparations for her copying there, she had no other orfurther intention in her thoughts. To be sure there was the possibilitythat Ludovico might have known her purpose of going thither, and mighthave planned to accompany her on her expedition, without having apprizedher of any such scheme. And it might not be unlikely that in such a casethey had been tempted to spend a few hours in the Pineta. And with thesepossibilities Signora Steno was obliged to tranquillize herself as shebest might.

  She returned home not without some hope that she might find that Paolinahad returned during her absence; but such was not the case--Paolina wasstill absent. And though it was now some eight or nine hours from thetime she had left home, old Orsola had nothing for it but to wait fortidings of her as patiently as she could.