Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  It was not till he was gone and Cucurullo was unpacking his master’s things that Trombin, who desired an opportunity of exchanging a few words alone with Stradella, led him to his own room. He carefully closed the door before speaking.

  ‘A word of explanation, Maestro,’ he said, ‘for all this must seem a little incomprehensible to you. First, let me tell you that the Lady Ortensia has spent the time of your imprisonment in the convent of the Ursuline nuns with her serving-woman. That is the first piece of news you wish to hear, I am sure.’

  The young musician drew a deep breath of relief, for his gnawing anxiety on Ortensia’s account had been far harder to bear during his confinement than any bodily hardship, and he had not at first thought it safe to ask any questions of his liberator. The mere fact that the latter had been introduced by the secretary as a Venetian gentleman had filled him with apprehension, and even now he believed that Trombin had probably been sent by Pignaver.

  As if understanding what passed in Stradella’s mind, the Bravo volunteered an explanation.

  ‘A friend of mine and I are travelling southwards on important business,’ he said. ‘Before we left Venice the town was ringing with your exploit, as it has echoed with your praises these three months past. My friend Count Gambardella and I are amongst your most ardent admirers, Signor Maestro, and I may say in confidence that we have a private grudge against the Senator Pignaver. You may imagine our delight on hearing that you had carried off his niece! Quite naturally we have asked after you at each posting station on the road. You understand the rest. My friend and I venture to hope that you and your bride will honour us with your company at supper.’

  ‘I cannot find words for my thanks, sir,’ answered Stradella, wondering whether he were not in a dream, still sleeping on the stone seat in his cell. ‘I can only hope to show you some day how grateful I am. You have saved my life!’

  Trombin smiled pleasantly, but said nothing.

  CHAPTER XI

  GAMBARDELLA KNOCKED AT the door of San Domenico twice in quick succession, and then again once after a short interval. For reasons known to himself he had not hesitated to begin his inquiries for Ortensia at the old Dominican convent then occupied by the nuns of Saint Ursula, and it was at once apparent that his knock inspired confidence. Instead of drawing back the small sliding panel in the weather-beaten door to see who was outside and to ask his errand, the portress opened the postern on one side almost immediately, without showing herself, and Gambardella slipped in unchallenged and shut it after him.

  He found himself in a high and vaulted vestibule which received light from the cloistered garden round which the convent was built, and he was at once confronted by the portress, who seemed much surprised when she saw that she had admitted a fine gentleman.

  Gambardella bowed respectfully before he spoke.

  ‘Reverend sister,’ said he, ‘I have the honour to be a friend of your Order, and if I am not mistaken I am known to your Mother Superior, of whom I come to ask audience, if she will receive me.’

  The lay sister hesitated. She was an elderly woman with flaccid yellow cheeks, watery eyes, and a more than incipient grey beard.

  ‘I think the Mother Superior is resting,’ she said, after a moment.

  ‘So late in the afternoon, sister? I trust that her Reverence is not indisposed?’

  ‘Besides,’ continued the portress, without heeding him, ‘you only said that you thought you were known to her. Pray can you tell me her Reverence’s name?’

  Gambardella smiled gently. Probably it was not the first time he had been obliged to argue with a convent door-keeper, that is, with the most incredulous and obstinate kind of human being in the world.

  ‘Unless I am mistaken,’ Gambardella answered, ‘her Reverence’s name, in religion, is Mother Agatha, and she was formerly Sub-Prioress of your house in Ravenna.’

  ‘I see that you are well-informed,’ the portress answered, somewhat reluctantly. ‘I will find out whether she is resting.’

  She turned from him to go into her dark little lodge, through which she had communication with the interior of the convent; but Gambardella called her back.

  ‘One moment, sister! You need make but one errand of it. Pray let her Reverence know that a Venetian gentleman of the name of Lorenzo Marcello sends her this token and begs the honour of a few words with her.’

  Therewith Gambardella drew from his finger the brass ring he always wore and placed it in the portress’s hand. After repeating the name he had given, she nodded and went within. While he waited, Gambardella looked through the iron gate that separated the vestibule from the pleasant cloistered garden, and his melancholy face was even more sad than usual, and his singular eyes more shadowy.

  ‘The Mother Superior will receive you in the parlour, sir,’ said the portress, coming back, and her tone showed that she now accorded the visitor high consideration.

  He followed her through the lodge, which only received light from its doors when they were open. Across one corner a dark brown curtain was hung, which presumably hid the portress’s pallet-bed. She led him through a whitewashed corridor, lighted from above, into a wide hall from which a broad staircase led upwards, and which had several doors, besides two open entrances. The portress opened one of the doors and shut it as soon as Gambardella had entered.

  He walked up and down the long gloomy room while he waited; the two grated windows were far above reach and opened upon a blank wall opposite. The bare stone pavement was damp, and the furniture consisted of a dark walnut table, once polished, a long straight-backed settle placed at one end, and twelve rush-bottomed chairs arranged round the sides of the room with great regularity. Above the settle hung a painfully realistic crucifix; on the wall at the opposite end a large barocco picture represented Saint Ursula in glory with the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne. Opposite the windows there was a bad copy of a portrait of Paul III., the Pope who first established the order. Judging from the parlour, it could not be said that the Ursulines of Ferrara were living in reprehensible luxury.

  In three or four minutes the door opened again and the Mother Superior entered. She was taller than most women, and very lean; her black gown and the black veil that almost reached the ground hung in straight folds, and her wimple and gorget framed a dark face, thin and expressive, with noticeably symmetrical features and ardent black eyes. It was impossible to guess at her age, but she might have been thirty.

  She bent her head slightly, in acknowledgment of Gambardella’s respectful bow, and looked at him during several seconds, as if she were recalling his appearance to her memory. Then she slowly walked away to the settle, seated herself in the middle of it, and pointed to a chair at a little distance. He sat down and waited for her to speak.

  ‘Why have you come?’ she asked, in a low tone that sounded resentful.

  ‘Is it a crime to see you after ten years?’ asked Gambardella with a good deal of sadness, and watching her face intently.

  ‘Unless you have changed greatly, it is at least a sin,’ she answered deliberately, and she met his eyes with eyes suddenly fierce.

  ‘I have changed greatly, and not for the better,’ he said simply, but he could not face her look. ‘It is neither to confess to you nor to ask your forgiveness again that I am here, for you have no more right to a confession than I have to your pardon.’

  ‘That may be,’ answered the nun, her tone relenting, ‘but such as my forgiveness can be, while I can still remember, you have it.’

  Gambardella was visibly moved at this unexpected concession. He was seated too far from her to touch her hand, but he put out his own humbly towards the hem of her black skirt, then brought it back to his lips and kissed it with reverence, as the very poor and wretched sometimes do in Italy to express deep gratitude. She watched him, and there was the faintest suggestion of a smile on her tightly closed lips. After a little pause, during which their eyes met once, he spoke.

  ‘I have come to inquire about a young
Venetian lady and her serving-woman, who took refuge with you last Saturday,’ he said, with perfect assurance, though he had no proof that the two were in the convent.

  The Mother Superior’s face darkened.

  ‘What are they to you?’ she asked sternly.

  This was a question which Gambardella was not prepared to answer truthfully, and he had not foreseen it. He vaguely wondered what the woman who had once loved him so well would say and do if she knew that he had sunk to the condition of a paid Bravo, and had taken money from one person to cut Ortensia’s throat and from another to deliver her up a prisoner, and was just now wondering how he could satisfy both his patrons.

  Until now he had seen a humorous element in his two abominable bargains; but in the grim presence of his own past things looked differently. The terrible eyes of the high-born woman he had loved and betrayed long ago, when he was still called an honourable gentleman, were upon him now, and he feared her as he had assuredly never feared any man in all his wild life. She understood her power, and waited for him to speak.

  But his fear only roused his faculties, and if he felt remorse when he thought of what she had once been and of the life she was leading now, by his fault, he knew well enough that as soon as she was out of his sight he would feel nothing but a dim regret that would hardly hurt.

  ‘I take a vicarious interest in the Lady Ortensia,’ he said after a little reflection. ‘A friend of mine, who is travelling with me, is also a friend of the man with whom she has run away, and who has been locked up by mistake, as I dare say you have heard from her.’

  ‘She has told me something,’ the Mother Superior said coldly.

  ‘I will tell you the whole story,’ he answered.

  He narrated the circumstances of Ortensia’s flight substantially as they were known to the Senator, and in as few words as possible, and she listened without interrupting him.

  ‘I know this Pignaver,’ he said in conclusion, ‘and I know positively that he has engaged two Bravi to follow the pair and murder them. At the best, he might be satisfied if Stradella were murdered and the girl brought back to him. Those fellows may be even now in Ferrara, waiting for a chance to do the deed. Our object is to unite the lovers and protect them on their journey till they are beyond the reach of danger. Do you see any great harm in that?’

  ‘They are not married,’ objected the nun.

  ‘I am sure they mean to be, as soon as possible,’ Gambardella answered. ‘You know what the girl’s life will be if you send her home, as I suppose you mean to do. You can guess the sort of existence she will lead when her uncle has her safely imprisoned in his house. I have heard it said that he intended to marry her, and if that is true he will deliberately torment her and perhaps starve her till she dies. He is as vain as he is cruel, and she has not a relation in the world to interfere with his doings.’

  ‘Poor girl!’ The Mother Superior sighed, and looked down at her folded hands.

  ‘And even if you insist on keeping her here, where I admit that she is safe,’ Gambardella continued, ‘Stradella’s life will not be safe when he is out of prison. For I will answer for it that he will not leave Ferrara without her, and his murder will be the first consequence of your refusal to let her join him.’

  ‘But they are not married,’ the nun said again. ‘I cannot let her go to him. It would be a great sin! It would be on my conscience!’

  ‘You will have his death on your conscience if you are not careful! But there is a very simple way out of the difficulty, if you will agree to it.’

  ‘I will agree to nothing that is not right,’ said the Mother Superior, in a tone that excluded any compromise, ‘and I tell you frankly that I do not trust you. It would be strange if I did.’

  ‘I do not ask you to trust me,’ Gambardella answered. ‘I shall merely show you your duty, and leave you to do it or not, as you please!’

  ‘My duty?’ The nun was both surprised and offended.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the other, unmoved. ‘Your objection is that they are not married. Marry them, then! That is plainly your duty, if anything is!’

  The Mother Superior looked at him quickly, as if not believing that he was in earnest, for she had been convincing herself that it was he who had carried off Ortensia, pretending to be Stradella.

  ‘It must be a very easy thing for you,’ Gambardella continued. ‘You have your own church here, and your own priest, who will probably obey you. If you are afraid of committing an irregularity, you need only send a request to the Archbishop, explaining that a runaway couple, for whom you can vouch, wish to have their union blessed. No good bishop would refuse such a slight favour as a dispensation from publishing banns. My friend and I will bring Stradella here early in the morning, and you will send the bride into the church from the convent. They will go away man and wife, and before noon we shall all be many miles on the road to Bologna and Rome. Could anything be simpler than that? or more perfectly right? or more honourable for you under the circumstances?’

  The nun had listened attentively, and when he had finished she nodded her approval.

  ‘I believe you are right,’ she said, though her tone betrayed some surprise that she could approve anything which he suggested. ‘I will take it upon myself to promise that our chaplain shall be waiting to-morrow morning after matins, and that the bride shall be ready in the sacristy. Poor child, she is poorly provided for her wedding! But I will find a veil for her.’

  ‘She will be grateful, and Stradella too. I have no doubt but that my friend has already obtained his liberation.’

  ‘What is your friend’s name?’ asked the Mother Superior, showing some curiosity for the first time since the interview had begun.

  Gambardella hesitated a moment, for the simple reason that he did not know the answer to the question, and that ‘Trombin’ alone was evidently not a name, but a nickname. The mere fact that the friends had both once had a right to sit in the Grand Council by no means implied that they had known each other, even by sight. To gain time Gambardella smiled and asked a counter-question.

  ‘Why do you wish to learn his name?’ he asked. ‘You can never have known him.’

  ‘That is true. It was idle curiosity. I do not care to know.’

  ‘It is no secret,’ Gambardella answered, having in the meantime thought of a name that would do. ‘My friend is Gaspero Mastropiero, a Venetian gentleman of fortune and a great patron of musicians. And now,’ he said, rising as he spoke, ‘nothing remains for me but to thank you for seeing me, and to take my leave. Will you give me back my ring, Reverend Mother?’

  He stood before her, holding out his hand with the palm upward to receive the token, and he laid a little stress on the title as he pronounced it. But there was no irony in his tone, for, young as she still was, it had been conferred upon her quite as much for her holy life as for her high descent, in an age when noble blood had great weight in such matters. He was certainly not speaking ironically; perhaps, amidst the tatters of his honour, some rag still covered a spot that could feel shame, and the monstrous deed, in doing which he had entrapped the nun to help him unawares, seemed foul beside the purity of her intention and the saintliness of her own life.

  The emphasis he gave to the two words was, therefore, at once respectful and sad, and did not offend her. She had put on the old brass ring herself when the portress had sent it up to her with his message; she took it off now and gave it back to him, careful that not even the tips of her fingers should touch his palm. Then she led the way, and he followed her.

  ‘May you never put it to a worse use than to-day,’ she said, stopping and letting her eyes meet his for a moment. ‘Good-bye.’

  ‘Pray for me,’ he said instinctively when he opened the door for her.

  She said nothing, but she bent her head a little as she passed out, perhaps meaning that she would do what he asked. He watched her tall retreating figure as she went up the middle of the staircase, till she turned past the dividing wall at the
first landing and disappeared without having once looked back. Then he himself went away through the high corridor and the dark lodge, and the portress let him out in silence.

  He did not go back to the inn at once, for the distance was very short, and he judged that Trombin could hardly have procured Stradella’s liberation in so short a time. He wished to be alone a little while, for, in spite of what he had come to be, his interview with the Mother Superior had disturbed him strangely. He had thought himself far beyond that bitterness of remorse and that sickness of shame which she had made him feel, and he wished to forget both before he met his companion to discuss the execution of the deed they had promised to do together, and could not now put off doing much longer. The nun’s burning eyes still haunted and reproached him, and her shadowy figure rose before him with the thin white face in which he could still trace the beauty that had once enthralled him. It was the bare woof of beauty that remained, for grief and penance had worn away the warp, leaving only the lines on which the exquisite fabric had been woven; but what was left of the woman was still there, breathing and living, while her soul had grown great in strength and spiritual honour till it towered above his who had once loved her, and made him afraid to meet her look.

  It could not last long, he knew, but while it did he must be alone. He walked far out on a road that led through the rich damp plain, and it was not till the sun was sinking low that he began to retrace his steps.

  When he reached the inn he found Trombin and Stradella together, and his friend introduced him with some ceremony as Count Gambardella. The musician, who was fully informed of the latter’s errand, pressed his hand warmly, and looked at him, evidently expecting news of Ortensia.

  ‘The lady and her serving-woman are well, sir,’ Gambardella said at once, ‘and I trust that to-morrow may end your difficulties happily.’

  ‘I hope so indeed,’ Stradella answered.