CHAPTER III.
THE GUINIGI TOWER.
Count Marescotti, by reason of too much imagination, and Baldassare, by reason of too little, were both oblivious; consequently the key and the porter were neither of them forthcoming when the party arrived at the door of the tower, which opened from a side-street behind and apart from the palace. Both the count and Baldassare ran off to find the man, leaving Trenta alone with Enrica.
"Ahi!" exclaimed the cavaliere, looking after them with a comical smile, "this youth of New Italy! They have no more brains than a pin. When I was young, and every city had its own ruler and its own court, I should not have escorted a lady and kept her waiting outside in the sun. Bah! those were not the manners of my day. At the court of the Duke of Lucca ladies were treated like divinities, but now the young men don't know how to kiss a woman's hand."
Receiving no answer, Trenta looked hard at Enrica. He was struck by her absent expression. There was a far-away look on her face he had never noticed on it before.
"Enrica," he said, taking both her hands within his own, "I fear you are not amused. These subjects are too grave to interest you. What are you thinking about?"
An anxious look came into her eyes, and she glanced hastily round, as if to assure herself that no one was near.
"Oh! I am thinking of such strange things!" She stopped and hesitated, seeing the cavaliere's glance of surprise. "I should like to tell you all, dear cavaliere—I would give the world to tell you—"
Again she stopped.
"Speak—speak, my child," he answered; "tell me all that is in your mind."
Before she could reply, the count and Baldassare reappeared, accompanied by the porter of the Guinigi Palace and the keys.
"Are you sure you would rather not return home again, Enrica? You have only to turn the corner, remember," asked Trenta, looking at her with anxious affection.
"No, no," she answered, greatly confused; "please say nothing—not now—another time. I should like to ascend the tower; let us go on."
The cavaliere was greatly puzzled. It was plain there was something on her mind. What could it be? How fortunate, he told himself, if she had taken a liking to Marescotti, and desired to confess it! This would make all easy. When he had spoken to the count, he would contrive to see her alone, and insist upon knowing if it were so.
The door was now opened, and the porter led the way, followed by the count and Baldassare. Trenta came next, Enrica last. They ascended stair after stair almost in darkness. After having mounted a considerable height, the porter unlocked a small door that barred their farther advance. Above appeared the blackened walls of the hollow tower, broken by the loop-holes already mentioned, through which the ardent sunshine slanted. Before them was a wooden stair, crossing from angle to angle up to a dizzy height, with no other support but a frail banister; this even was broken in places. The count and Enrica both entreated the cavaliere to remain below. Marescotti ventured to allude to his great age—a subject he himself continually, as has been seen, mentioned, but which he generally much resented when alluded to by others.
Trenta listened with perfect gravity and politeness, but, when the count had done speaking, he placed his foot firmly on the first stair, and began to ascend after the porter. The others were obliged to follow. At the last flight several loose planks shook ominously under their feet; but Trenta, assisted by his stick, stepped on perseveringly. He also insisted on helping Enrica, who was next to him, and who by this time was both giddy and frightened. At length a trap-door, at the top of the tower, was reached and unbarred by the attendant. Without, covered with grass, is a square platform, protected by a machicolated parapet of turreted stone-work. In the centre rises a cluster of ancient bay-trees, fresh and luxuriant, spite of the wind and storms of centuries.
The count leaped out upon the greensward and rushed to the parapet.
"How beautiful!" he exclaimed, throwing back his head and drawing in the warm air. "See how the sun of New Italy lights up the old city! Cathedral, palace, church, gallery, roof, tower, all ablaze at our feet! Speak, tell me, is it not wonderful?" and he turned to Enrica, who, anxiously turning from side to side, was trying to discover where she could best overlook the street of San Simone and Nobili's palace.
Addressed by Marescotti, she started and stopped short.
"Never, never," he continued, becoming greatly excited, "shall I forget this meeting!—here with you—the golden-haired daughter of this ancient house!"
"I!" exclaimed Enrica. "O count, what a mistake! I have no house, no home. I live on the charity of my aunt."
"That makes no difference in your descent, fair Guinigi. Charity! charity! Who would not shower down oceans of charity to possess such a treasure?" He leaned his back against the parapet, and bent his eyes with fervent admiration on her. "It is only in verse that I can celebrate her," he muttered, "prose is too cold for her warm coloring. The Madonna—the uninstructed Madonna—before the archangel's visit—"
"But, count," said Enrica timidly (his vehemence and strange glances made her feel very shy), "will you tell me the names of the beautiful mountains around? I have seen so little—I am so ignorant."
"I will, I will," replied Marescotti, speaking rapidly, his glowing eyes raising themselves from her face to look out over the distance; "but, in mercy, grant me a few moments to collect myself. Remember I am a poet; imagination is my world; the unreal my home; the Muses my sisters. I live there above, in the golden clouds"—and he turned and pointed to a crest of glittering vapor sailing across the intense blue of the sky. Then, with his hand pressed on his brow, he began to pace rapidly up and down the narrow platform.
The cavaliere and Baldassare were watching him from the farther end of the tower.
"He! he!" said Trenta, and he gave a little laugh and nudged Baldassare. "Do you see the count? He is fairly off. Marescotti is too poetical for this world. Unpractical, poor fellow—very unpractical. The fit is on him now. Look at him, Baldassare; see how he stares about, and clinches his fist. I hope he will not leap over the parapet in his ecstasy."
"Ha! ha!" responded Baldassare, who with eyes wide open, and hands thrust into his pockets, leaned back beside Trenta against the wall. "Ha, ha!—I must laugh," Baldassare whispered into his ear—"I cannot help it—look how the count's lips are moving. He is in the most extraordinary excitement."
"It's all very fine," rejoined Trenta, "but I wonder he does not frighten Enrica. There she stands, quite still. I can't see her face, but she seems to like it. It's all very fine," he repeated, nodding his white head reflectively. "Republicans, communists, orators, poets, heretics—all the plagues of hell! Dio buono! give me a little plain common-sense—plain common-sense, and a paternal government. As to Marescotti, these new-fangled notions will turn his brain; he'll end in a mad-house. I don't believe he is quite in his senses at this very minute. Look! look! What strides he is taking up and down! For the love of Heaven, my boy, run and fasten the trap-door tight! He may fall through! He's not safe! I swear it, by all the saints!" Baldassare, shaking with suppressed laughter, secured the trap-door.
"I must say you are a little hard on the count," Baldassare said. "Why, he's only composing. I know his way. Trust me, it's a sonnet. He is composing a sonnet addressed perhaps to the signorina. He admires her very much."
Trenta smiled, and mentally determined, for the second time, to take the earliest opportunity of speaking to Count Marescotti before the ridiculous reports circulating in Lucca reached him.
"Per Bacco!" he replied, "when the count is as old as I am, he will have learned that quiet is the greatest luxury a man can enjoy—especially in Italy, where the climate is hot and fevers frequent."
How long the count would have continued in the clouds, it is impossible to say, had he not been suddenly brought down to earth—or, at least, the earth on the top of the tower—by something that suddenly struck his gaze.
Enrica, who had strained her eyes in vain to discover some trace of Nobili in the narrow street below, or in the garden behind his palace, had now thrown herself on the grass under the overhanging branches of the glossy bay-trees. These inclosed her as in a bower. Her colorless face rested upon her hand, her eyes were turned toward the ground, and her long blond hair fell in a tangled mass below the folds of her veil, upon her white dress. The count stood transfixed before her.
"Move not, sweet vision!" he cried. "Be ever so! That innocent face shaded by the classic bay; that white robe rustling with the thrill of womanly affinities; those fair locks floating like an aureole in the breeze thy breath has softly perfumed! Rest there enthroned—the world thy backguard, the sky thy canopy! Stay, let me crown thee!"
As he spoke he hastily plucked some sprays of bay, which he twisted into a wreath. He approached Enrica, who had remained quite still, and, kneeling at her feet, placed the wreath upon her head.
"Enrica Guinigi"—the count spoke so softly that neither Trenta nor Baldassare could catch the words—"there is something in your beauty too ethereal for this world."
Enrica, covered with blushes, tried to rise, but he held out his hands imploringly for her to remain.
"Suffer me to speak to you. Yours is a face of one easily moved to love—to love and to suffer," he added, strange lights coming into his eyes as he gazed at her.
Enrica listened to him in painful silence; his words sounded prophetic.
"To love and to suffer; but, loving once"—again the count was speaking, and his voice enchained her by its sweetness—"to love forever. Where shall the man be found pure enough to dare to accept such love as you can bestow? By Heavens!" he added, and his voice fell to a whisper, and his black eyes seemed to penetrate into her very soul, "you love already. I read it in the depths of those heavenly eyes, in the shadow that already darkens that soft brow, in the dreamy, languid air that robs you of your youth. You love—is it possible that you love—?"
He stopped before the question was finished—before the name was uttered. A spasm, as if wrung from him by sharp bodily pain, passed over his features as he asked this question, never destined to be answered. No one but Enrica had heard it. An indescribable terror seized her; from pale she grew deadly white; her eyelids dropped, her lips trembled. Tears gathered in Marescotti's eyes as he gazed at her, but he dared not complete the question.
"If you have guessed my secret, do not—oh! do not betray me!"
She said this so faintly that the sound came to him like a whisper from the rustling bay-leaves.
"Never!" he responded in a low, earnest tone—"never!"
She believed him implicitly. With that look, that voice, who could doubt him?
"I have cause to suffer," she replied with a sigh, not venturing to meet his eyes—"to suffer and to wait. But my aunt—"
She said no more; her head fell on her bosom, her arms dropped to her side, she sighed deeply.
"May I be at hand to shield you!" was his answer.
After this, he, too, was silent. Rising from his knees, he leaned against the trunk of the bay-tree and contemplated her steadfastly. There was a strange mixture of passion and of curiosity in his mobile face. If she would not tell him, could he not rend her secret from her?
Trenta, seated at the opposite side of the platform, observed them as they stood side by side, half concealed by the foliage—observed them with benign satisfaction. It was all as it should be; his mission would be easy. It was clear they understood each other. He believed at that very moment Enrica was receiving the confession of Marescotti's love; the confusion of her looks was conclusive. The cavaliere's whole endeavor was, at that moment, to keep Baldassare quiet; he rejoiced to see that he was gently yielding to the influence of the heat, and nodding at his side.
"Count," said Enrica, looking up and endeavoring to break a silence which had become painful, "if I have inspired you with any interest—"
She hesitated.
"If you have inspired me?" ejaculated Marescotti, reproachfully, not moving his eyes off her.
"I can hardly believe it," she added; "but, if it be so, speak to me in the voice of poetry. Tell me your thoughts."
"Yes," exclaimed the count, clasping his hands; "I have been longing to do so ever since I first saw you. Will you permit it? If so, give me paper and pencil, that I may write."
Enrica had neither. Rising from the ground, she crossed over to where Trenta sat, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the roofs of his native city. Fortunately, after diving into various pockets, he found a pencil and the fly-leaf of a letter. Marescotti took them and retreated to the farther end of the tower; Enrica leaned against the wall beside the cavaliere.
In a few minutes the count joined them; he returned the pencil with a bow to the cavaliere. The sonnet was already written on the fly-leaf of the letter.
"Oh!" cried Enrica, "give me that paper, I know it will tell me my fate. Give it to me. Count, do not refuse me." Her look, her manner, was eager—imploring. As the count drew back, she endeavored to seize the paper from his hand. But Marescotti, holding the paper above his head, in one moment had crushed it in his fingers, and, rushing forward, he flung it over the battlements.
"It is not worthy of you!" he exclaimed, with excitement; "it is worthy neither of you nor of me! No, no," and he leaned over the tower, and watched the paper as it floated downward in the still air. "Let it perish."
"Oh! why have you destroyed it?" cried Enrica, greatly distressed. "That paper would have told me all I want to know. How cruel! how unkind!"
But there was no help for it. No lamentation could bring the paper back again. The sonnet was gone. Marescotti had sacrificed the man to the poet. His artistic sense had conquered.
"Excuse me, dear signorina," he pleaded, "the composition was imperfect. It was too hurried. With your permission, on my return, I will address some other verses to you, more appropriate—more polished."
"Ah! they will not be like those. They will not tell me what I want to know. They cannot come from your very soul like those. The power to divine is gone from you." Enrica could hardly restrain her tears.
"I am very sorry," answered the count, "but I could not help it; I did it unconsciously."
"Indeed, count, you did very wrong," put in the cavaliere; "one understands you wrote in furore—so much the better," and Trenta gave a sly wink, which was entirely lost on Marescotti. "But time is getting on. When are we to have that oration on the history and beauties of Lucca that we came up to hear? Had you not better begin?"
The count was engaged at that moment in plucking a sprig of bay for himself and for the cavaliere to wear, as he said, "in memoriam." "I am ready," he replied. "It is a subject that I love."
"Let us begin with the mountains; they are the nearest to God." As he pronounced that name, the count raised his eyes reverently, and uncovered his head. Enrica had placed herself on his right hand, but all interest had died out of her face. She only listened mechanically.
(Yes, the mountains, the glorious mountains! There they were—before, behind, in front; range upon range—peak upon peak, like breakers on a restless sea! Mountains of every shade, of every shape, of every height. Already their mighty tops were flecked with the glow of the western sunbeams; already pink and purple mists had gathered upon their sides, filling the valleys with mystery!)
"There," said the count, pointing in the direction of the winding river Serchio, "is La Panga, the loftiest Apennine in Central Italy. The peaked summits of those other mountains more to the right are the marble-bosomed range of Carrara. One might believe them at this time covered with a mantle of snow, but for the ardent sun, the deep green of the belting plains, and the luxuriance of the forests. Yonder steep chestnut-clothed height that terminates the valley opening before us is Bargilio, a mountain fortress of the Panciatici over the Baths of Lucca."
Marescotti paused to take breath. Enrica's eyes languidly followed the direction of his hand. The cavaliere, standing on his other side, was adjusting his spectacles, the better to distinguish the distance.
"To the south," continued the count, pointing with his finger—"in the centre of that rich vine-trellised Campagna, lies Pescia, a garden of luscious fruits. Beyond, nestling in the hollows of the Apennines, shutting in the plain of that side, is ancient Lombard-walled Pistoja—the key to the passes of Northern Italy. Farther on, nearer Florence, rise the heights of Monte Catni, crowned as with a diadem by a small burgh untouched since the middle ages. Nearer at hand, glittering like steel in the sunshine, is the lake of Bientina. You can see its low, marshy shores fringed by beauteous woodlands, but without a single dwelling."
Enrica, in a fit of abstraction, leaned over the parapet. Her eyes were riveted upon the city beneath. Marescotti followed her eyes.
"Yes," said he, "there is Lucca;" and as he spoke he glanced inquiringly at her, and the tones of his clear, melodious voice grew soft and tender. "Lucca the Industrious, bound within her line of ancient walls and fortifications. Great names and great deeds are connected with Lucca. Here, tradition says, Julius Caesar ruled as proconsul. How often may the sandals of his feet have trod these narrow streets—his purple robes swept the dust of our piazza! Here he may have officiated as high-priest at our altars—dictated laws from our palaces! It was after the conquest of the Nervii (most savage among the Gaulish tribes) that Julius Caesar is said to have first come to Lucca. Pompey and Crassus met him here. It was at this time that Domitius—Caesar's enemy, then a candidate for the consulship—boasted that he would ruin him. But Caesar, seizing the opportune moment of his recent victories over the Gauls, and his meeting with Pompey—formed the bold plan of grasping universal power by means of his deadliest enemies. These enemies, rather than see the supreme power vested in each other, united to advance him. The first triumvirate was the consequence of the meeting. Ages pass by. The Roman Empire dissolves. Barbarians invade Italy. Lucca is an independent state—not long to remain so, however, for the Countess Matilda, daughter of Duke Bonifazio, is born within her walls. At Lucca Countess Matilda holds her court. By her counsels, assistance, and the rich legacy of her patrimonial dominions, she founds the temporal power of the papacy. To Lucca came, in the fifteenth century, Charles VIII. of France, presumptuous enough to attempt the conquest of Naples; also that mighty dissembler, Charles V. to meet the reigning pontiff Paul III. in our cathedral of San Martino. But more precious far to me than the traditions of the shadowy pomp of defunct tyrants is the remembrance that Lucca was the Geneva of Italy—that these streets beneath us resounded to the public teaching of the Reformation! Such progress, indeed, had the reformers made, that it was publicly debated in the city council, 'If Lucca should declare herself Protestant—'"
"Per Bacco! a disgraceful fact in our history!" burst out Trenta, a look of horror in his round blue eyes. "Hide it, hide it, count! For the love of Heaven! You do not expect me to rejoice at this? Pray, when you mention it, add that the Protestants were obliged to flee for their lives, and that Lucca purified itself by abject submission to the Holy Father."
"Yes; and what came of that?" cried the count, raising his voice, a sudden flush of anger mounting over his face. "The Church—your Catholic and Apostolic Church—established the Inquisition. The Inquisition condemned to the flames the greatest prophet and teacher since the apostles—Savonarola!"
Trenta, knowing how deeply Marescotti's feelings were engaged in the subject of Savonarola, was too courteous to desire any further discussion. But at the same time he was determined, if possible, to hear no more of what was to him neither more nor less than blasphemy.
"Do you know how long we have been up here, count?" he asked, taking out his watch. "Enrica must return. I hope you won't detain us," he said, with a pitiful look at the count, who seemed preparing for an oration in honor of the mediaeval martyr. "I have already got a violent rheumatism in my shoulder.—Here, Baldassare, open the trap-door, and let us go down.—Where is Baldassare?—Baldassare! Where are you, imbecile? Baldassare, I say! Why, diamine! Where can the boy be? He's not been privately practising his last new step behind the bay-trees, and taken a false one over the parapet?"
The small space was easily searched. Baldassare was discovered sketched at full length and fast asleep under a bench on the other side of the bay-trees.
"Ah, wretch!" grumbled the old chamberlain, "if you sleep like this you will outlive me, who mean to flourish for the next hundred years. He's always asleep, except when dancing," he added indignantly appealing to Marescotti. "Look at him. There's beauty without expression. Doesn't he inspire you? Endymion who has overslept himself and missed Diana—Narcissus overcome by the sight of his own beauty."
After being called, pushed, and pinched, by the cavaliere, Baldassare at last opened his eyes in great bewilderment—stretched himself, yawned, then, suddenly clapping his hand to his side, looked fiercely at Trenta. Trenta was shaking with laughter.
"Mille diavoli!" cried Baldassare, rubbing himself vigorously, "how dare you pinch me so, cavaliere? I shall be black and blue. Why should not I sleep? Nobody spoke to me."
"I fear you have heard little of the history of Lucca," said the count, smiling.
"Dio buono! what is history to me? I hate it!—I-tell you what, cavaliere, you have hurt me very much." And Baldassare passed his hand carefully down his side. "The next time I go to sleep in your company, I'll trouble you to keep your fingers to yourself. You have rapped me like a drum."
Trenta watched the various phases of Baldassare's wrath with the greatest amusement. The descent having been safely accomplished, the whole party landed in the street. Count Marescotti, who came last, advanced to take leave of Enrica. At this moment an olive-skinned, black-eyed girl rose out of the shadow of a neighboring wall, and, lowering a basket from her head, filled with fruit—tawny figs, ruddy peaches, purple grapes, and russet-skinned medlars, shielded from the heat by a covering of freshly-picked vine-leaves—offered it to Enrica. Our Adonis, still sulky and sore from the pinches inflicted by the mischievous fingers of the cavaliere, waved the girl rudely away.
"Fruit! Chè! Begone! our servants have better. Such fruit as that is not good enough for us; it is full of worms."
The girl looked up at him timidly, tears gathered in her dark eyes.
"It is for my mother," she answered, humbly; "she is ill."
As she bent her head to replace the basket, Marescotti, who had listened to Baldassare with evident disgust, raised the basket in his arms, and with the utmost care poised it on the coil of her dark hair.
"Beautiful peasant," he said, "I salute you. This is for your mother," and he placed some notes in her hand.
The girl thanked him, coloring as red as the peaches in her basket, then, hastily turning the corner of the street, disappeared.
"A perfect Pomona! I make a point of honoring beauty whenever I find it," exclaimed the count, looking after her. He cast a reproving glance at Baldassare, who stood with his eyes wide open. "The Greeks worshiped beauty—I agree with them. Beauty is divine. What say you? Were not the Greeks right?"
The words were addressed to Baldassare—the sense and the direction of his eyes pointed to Enrica.
"Yes; beauty," replied Baldassare, smoothing his glossy mustache, and trying to look very wise (he was not in the least conscious of the covert rebuke administered by Marescotti)—"beauty is very refreshing, but I must say I prefer it in the upper classes. For my part, I like beauty that can dance—wooden shoes are not to my taste."
"Ah! canaglia!" muttered the cavaliere, "there is no teaching you. You will never be a gentleman."
Baldassare was dumbfounded. He had not a word to reply.
"Count"—and the old chamberlain, utterly disregarding the dismay of poor Adonis, who never clearly understood what he had done to deserve such severity, now addressed himself to Marescotti—"will you be visible to-morrow after breakfast? If so, I shall have the honor of calling on you."
"With pleasure," was the count's reply.
Enrica stood apart. She had not spoken one word since the disappearance of the sonnet—that sonnet which would have told her of her future; for had not Marescotti, by some occult power, read her secret? Alas! too, was she not about to reenter her gloomy home without catching so much as a glimpse of Nobili? Count Marescotti had no opportunity of saying a word to Enrica that was not audible to all. He did venture to ask her if she would be present next evening, if he joined the marchesa's rubber? Before she could reply, Trenta had hastily answered for her, that "he would settle all that with the count when they met in the morning." So, standing in the street, they parted. Count Marescotti sought in vain for one last glance from Enrica. When he turned round to look for Baldassare, Baldassare had disappeared.