Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)

by Ann Radcliffe

  The Count di Marinella, for such had formerly been the title of the Confessor, was the younger son of an ancient family, who resided in the duchy of Milan, and near the feet of the Tyrolean Alps, on such estates of their ancestors, as the Italian wars of a former century had left them. The portion, which he had received at the death of his father, was not large, and Schedoni was not of a disposition to improve his patrimony by slow diligence, or to submit to the restraint and humiliation, which his narrow finances would have imposed. He disdained to acknowledge an inferiority of fortune to those, with whom he considered himself equal in rank; and, as he was destitute of generous feeling, and of sound judgment, he had not that loftiness of soul, which is ambitious of true grandeur. On the contrary, he was satisfied with an ostentatious display of pleasures and of power, and, thoughtless of the consequence of dissipation, was contented with the pleasures of the moment, till his exhausted resources compelled him to pause, and to reflect. He perceived, too late for his advantage, that it was necessary for him to dispose of part of his estate, and to confine himself to the income of the remainder. Incapable of submitting with grace to the reduction, which his folly had rendered expedient, he endeavoured to obtain by cunning, the luxuries that his prudence had failed to keep, and which neither his genius or his integrity could command. He withdrew, however, from the eyes of his neighbours, unwilling to submit his altered circumstances to their observation.

  Concerning several years of his life, from this period, nothing was generally known; and, when he was next discovered, it was in the Spirito Santo convent at Naples, in the habit of a Monk, and under the assumed name of Schedoni. His air and countenance were as much altered as his way of life; his looks had become gloomy and severe, and the pride, which had mingled with the gaiety of their former expression, occasionally discovered itself under the disguise of humility, but more frequently in the austerity of silence, and in the barbarity of penance.

  The person who discovered Schedoni, would not have recollected him, had not his remarkable eyes first fixed his attention, and then revived remembrance. As he examined his features, he traced the faint resemblance of what Marinella had been, to whom he made himself known.

  The Confessor affected to have forgotten his former acquaintance, and assured him, that he was mistaken respecting himself, till the stranger so closely urged some circumstances, that the former was no longer permitted to dissemble. He retired, in some emotion, with the stranger, and, whatever might be the subject of their conference, he drew from him, before he quited the convent, a tremendous vow, to keep secret from the brotherhood his knowledge of Schedoni’s family, and never to reveal without those walls, that he had seen him. These requests he had urged in a manner, that at once surprised and awed the stranger, and which at the same time that it manifested the weight of Schedoni’s fears, bade the former tremble for the consequence of disobedience; and he shuddered even while he promised to obey. Of the first part of the promise he was probably strictly observant; whether he was equally so of the second, does not appear; it is certain, that after this period, he was never more seen or heard of at Naples.

  Schedoni, ever ambitious of distinction, adapted his manners to the views and prejudices of the society with whom he resided, and became one of the most exact observers of their outward forms, and almost a prodigy for self-denial and severe discipline. He was pointed out by the fathers of the convent to the juniors as a great example, who was, however, rather to be looked up to with reverential admiration, than with an hope of emulating his sublime virtues. But with such panegyrics their friendship for Schedoni concluded. They found it convenient to applaud the austerities, which they declined to practise; it procured them a character for sanctity, and saved them the necessity of earning it by mortifications of their own; but they both feared and hated Schedoni for his pride and his gloomy austerities, too much, to gratify his ambition by any thing further than empty praise. He had been several years in the society, without obtaining any considerable advancement, and with the mortification of seeing persons, who had never emulated his severity, raised to high offices in the church. Somewhat too late he discovered, that he was not to expect any substantial favour from the brotherhood, and then it was that his restless and disappointed spirit first sought preferment by other avenues. He had been some years Confessor to the Marchesa di Vivaldi, when the conduct of her son awakened his hopes, by showing him, that he might render himself not only useful but necessary to her, by his councils. It was his custom to study the characters of those around him, with a view of adapting them to his purposes, and, having ascertained that of the Marchesa, these hopes were encouraged. He perceived that her passions were strong, her judgment weak; and he understood, that, if circumstances should ever enable him to be serviceable in promoting the end at which any one of those passions might aim, his fortune would be established.

  At length, he so completely insinuated himself into her confidence, and became so necessary to her views, that he could demand his own terms, and this he had not failed to do, though with all the affected delicacy and finesse that his situation seemed to require. An office of high dignity in the church, which had long vainly excited his ambition, was promised him by the Marchesa, who had sufficient influence to obtain it; her condition was that of his preserving the honour of her family, as she delicately termed it, which she was careful to make him understand could be secured only by the death of Ellena. He acknowledged, with the Marchesa, that the death of this fascinating young woman was the only means of preserving that honour, since, if she lived, they had every evil to expect from the attachment and character of Vivaldi, who would discover and extricate her from any place of confinement, however obscure or difficult of access, to which she might be conveyed. How long and how arduously the Confessor had aimed to oblige the Marchesa, has already appeared. The last scene was now arrived, and he was on the eve of committing that atrocious act, which was to secure the pride of her house, and to satisfy at once his ambition and his desire of vengeance; when an emotion new and surprising to him, had arrested his arm, and compelled his resolution to falter. But this emotion was transient, it disappeared almost with the object that had awakened it; and now, in the silence and retirement of his chamber, he had leisure to recollect his thoughts, to review his schemes, to reanimate his resolution, and to wonder again at the pity, which had almost won him from his purpose. The ruling passion of his nature once more resumed it’s authority, and he determined to earn the honour, which the Marchesa had in store for him.

  After some cool, and more of tumultuous, consideration, he resolved that Ellena should be assassinated that night, while she slept, and afterwards conveyed through a passage of the house communicating with the sea, into which the body might be thrown and buried, with her sad story, beneath the waves. For his own sake, he would have avoided the danger of shedding blood, had this appeared easy; but he had too much reason to know she had suspicions of poison, to trust to a second attempt by such means; and again his indignation rose against himself, since by yielding to a momentary compassion, he had lost the opportunity afforded him of throwing her unresistingly into the surge.

  Spalatro, as has already been hinted, was a former confident of the Confessor, who knew too truly, from experience, that he could be trusted, and had, therefore, engaged him to assist on this occasion. To the hands of this man he cosigned the fate of the unhappy Ellena, himself recoiling from the horrible act he had willed; and intending by such a step to involve Spalatro more deeply in the guilt, and thus more effectually to secure his secret.

  The night was far advanced before Schedoni’s final resolution was taken, when he summoned Spalatro to his chamber to instruct him in his office. He bolted the door, by which the man had entered, forgetting that themselves were the only persons in the house, except the poor Ellena, who, unsuspicious of what was conspiring, and her spirits worn out by the late scene, was sleeping peacefully on her mattress above. Schedoni moved softly from the door he had secured, and
, beckoning Spalatro to approach, spoke in a low voice, as if he feared to be overheard. “Have you perceived any sound from her chamber lately?” said he, “Does she sleep, think you?”

  “No one has moved there for this hour past, at least,” replied Spalatro, “I have been watching in the corridor, till you called, and should have heard if she had stirred, the old floor shakes so with every step.”

  “Then hear me, Spalatro,” said the Confessor. “I have tried, and found thee faithful, or I should not trust thee in a business of confidence like this. Recollect all I said to thee in the morning, and be resolute and dexterous, as I have ever found thee.”

  Spalatro listened in gloomy attention, and the Monk proceeded, “It is late; go, therefore, to her chamber; be certain that she sleeps. Take this,” he added, “and this,” giving him a dagger and a large cloak— “You know how you are to use them.”

  He paused, and fixed his penetrating eyes on Spalatro, who held up the dagger in silence, examined the blade, and continued to gaze upon it, with a vacant stare, as if he was unconscious of what he did.

  “You know your business,” repeated Schedoni, authoritatively, “dispatch! time wears; and I must set off early.”

  The man made no reply.

  “The morning dawns already,” said the Confessor, still more urgently, “Do you faulter? do you tremble? Do I not know you?”

  Spalatro put up the poinard in his bosom without speaking, threw the cloak over his arm, and moved with a loitering step towards the door.

  “Dispatch!” repeated the Confessor, “why do you linger?”

  “I cannot say I like this business, Signor,” said Spalatro surlily. “I know not why I should always do the most, and be paid the least.”

  “Sordid villain!” exclaimed Schedoni, “you are not satisfied then!”

  “No more a villain than yourself, Signor,” retorted the man, throwing down the cloak, “I only do your business; and ‘tis you that are sordid, for you would take all the reward, and I would only have a poor man have his dues. Do the work yourself, or give me the greater profit.”

  “Peace!” said Schedoni, “dare no more to insult me with the mention of reward. Do you imagine I have sold myself! ‘Tis my will that she dies; this is sufficient; and for you — the price you have asked has been granted.”

  “It is too little,” replied Spalatro, and besides, I do not like the work. — What harm has she done me?”

  “Since when is it, that you have taken upon you to moralize?” said the Confessor, “and how long are these cowardly scruples to last? This is not the first time you have been employed; what harm

  had others done you! You forget that I know you, you forget the past.”

  “No, Signor, I remember it too well, I wish I could forget; I remember it too well. — I have never been at peace since. The bloody hand is always before me! and often of a night, when the sea roars, and storms shake the house, they have come, all gashed as I left them, and stood before my bed! I have got up and ran out upon the shore for safety!”

  “Peace!” repeated the Confessor, “where is this frenzy of fear to end? To what are these visions, painted in blood, to lead? I thought I was talking with a man, but find I am speaking only to a baby, possessed with his nurse’s dreams! Yet I understand you, — you shall be satisfied.”

  Schedoni, however, had for once misunderstood this man, when he could not believe it possible that he was really averse to execute what he had undertaken. Whether the innocence and beauty of Ellena had softened his heart, or that his conscience did torture him for his past deeds, he persisted in refusing to murder her. His conscience, or his pity, was of a very peculiar kind however; for, though he refused to execute the deed himself, he consented to wait at the foot of a back staircase, that communicated with Ellena’s chamber, while Schedoni accomplished it, and afterward to assist in carrying the body to the shore. “This is a compromise between conscience and guilt, worthy of a demon,” muttered Schedoni, who appeared to be insensible that he had made the same compromise with himself not an hour before; and whose extreme reluctance at this moment, to perpetrate with his own hand, what he had willingly designed for another, ought to have reminded him of that compromise.

  Spalatro, released from the immediate office of an executioner, endured silently the abusive, yet half-stifled, indignation of the Confessor, who also bade him remember, that, though he now shrunk from the most active part of this transaction, he had not always been restrained, in offices of the same nature, by equal compunction; and that not only his means of subsistence, but his very life itself, was at his mercy. Spalatro readily acknowledged that it was so; and Schedoni knew, too well, the truth of what he had urged, to be restrained from his purpose, by any apprehension of the consequence of a discovery from this ruffian.

  “Give me the dagger, then,” said the Confessor, after a long pause, “take up the cloak, and follow to the staircase. Let me see, whether your valour will carry you thus far.”

  Spalatro resigned the stiletto, and threw the cloak again over his arm. The Confessor stepped to the door, and, trying to open it, “It is fastened!” said he in alarm, “some person has got into the house, — it is fastened!”

  “That well may be, Signor,” replied Spalatro, calmly, “for I saw you bolt it yourself, after I came into the room.”

  “True,” said Schedoni, recovering himself; “that is true.”

  He opened it, and proceeded along the silent passages, towards the private staircase, often pausing to listen, and then stepping more lightly; — the terrific Schedoni, in this moment of meditative guilt, feared even the feeble Ellena. At the foot of the staircase, he again stopped to listen. “Do you hear any thing?” said he in a whisper.

  “I hear only the sea,” replied the man.

  “Hush! it is something more!” said Schedoni; “that is the murmur of voices!”

  They were silent. After a pause of some length, “It is, perhaps, the voice of the spectres I told you of, Signor,” said Spalatro, with a sneer. “Give me the dagger,” said Schedoni.

  Spalatro, instead of obeying, now grasped the arm of the Confessor, who, looking at him for an explanation of this extraordinary action, was still more surprised to observe the paleness and horror of his countenance. His starting eyes seemed to follow some object along the passage, and Schedoni, who began to partake of his feelings, looked forward to discover what occasioned this dismay, but could not perceive any thing that justified it. “What is it you fear?” said he at length.

  Spalatro’s eyes were still moving in horror, “Do you see nothing!” said he pointing. Schedoni looked again, but did not distinguish any object in the remote gloom of the passage, whither Spalatro’s sight was now fixed.

  “Come, come,” said he, ashamed of his own weakness, “this is not a moment for such fancies. Awake from this idle dream.”

  Spalatro withdrew his eyes, but they retained all their wildness. “It was no dream,” said he, in the voice of a man who is exhausted by pain, and begins to breathe somewhat more freely again. “I saw it as plainly as I now see you.”

  “Dotard! what did you see!” enquired the Confessor.

  “It came before my eyes in a moment, and shewed itself distinctly and outspread.”

  “What shewed itself?” repeated Schedoni.

  “And then it beckoned — yes, it beckoned me, with that blood-stained finger! and glided away down the passage, still beckoning — till it was lost in the darkness.”

  “This is very frenzy!” said Schedoni, excessively agitated. “Arouse yourself, and be a man!”

  “Frenzy! would it were, Signor. I saw that dreadful hand — I see it now — it is there again! — there!”

  Schedoni, shocked, embarrassed, and once more infected with the strange emotions of Spalatro, looked forward expecting to discover some terrific object, but still nothing was visible to him, and he soon recovered himself sufficiently to endeavour to appease the fancy of this conscience-struck ruffian. But Spa
latro was insensible to all he could urge, and the Confessor, fearing that his voice, though weak and stifled, would awaken Ellena, tried to withdraw him from the spot, to the apartment they had quitted.

  “The wealth of San Loretto should not make me go that way, Signor,” replied he, shuddering— “that was the way it beckoned, it vanished that way!”

  Every emotion now yielded with Schedoni, to that of apprehension left Ellena, being awakened, should make his task more horrid by a struggle, and his embarrassment encreased at each instant, for neither command, menace, or entreaty could

  prevail with Spalatro to retire, till the Monk luckily remembered a door, which opened beyond the staircase, and would conduct them by another way to the opposite side of the house. The man consented so to depart, when, Schedoni unlocking a suit of rooms, of which he had always kept the keys, they passed in silence through an extent of desolate chambers, till they reached the one, which they had lately left.

  Here, relieved from apprehension respecting Ellena, the Confessor expostulated more freely with Spalatro, but neither argument or menace could prevail, and the man persisted in refusing to return to the staircase, though protesting, at the same time, that he would not remain alone in any part of the house; till the wine, with which the Confessor abundantly supplied him, began to overcome the terrors of his imagination. At length, his courage was so much reanimated, that he consented to resume his station, and await at the foot of the stairs the accomplishment of Schedoni’s dreadful errand, with which agreement they returned thither by the way they had lately passed. The wine, with which Schedoni also had found it necessary to strengthen his own resolution, did not secure him from severe emotion, when he found himself again near Ellena; but he made a strenuous effort for self-subjection, as he demanded the dagger of Spalatro.