CHAPTER IX.
WHAT CAME OF IT.
When Cavaliere Trenta returned, after he had led away Enrica, and consigned her to Teresa, he was very grave. As he crossed the room toward the marchesa, he moved feebly, and leaned heavily on his stick. Then he drew a chair opposite to her, sat down, heaved a deep sigh, and raised his eyes to her face.
The marchesa had not moved. She did not move now, but sat the picture of hard, haughty despair—a despair that would gnaw body and soul, yet give no sigh. But the cavaliere was now too much absorbed by Enrica's sufferings to affect even to take much heed of the marchesa.
"This is a very serious business," he began, abruptly. "You may have to answer for that girl's life. I shall be the first to witness against you."
Never in her life had the marchesa heard Cesare Trenta deliver himself of such a decided censure upon her conduct. His wheedling, coaxing manner was all gone. He was neither the courtier nor the counselor. He neither insinuated nor suggested, but spoke bluntly out bold words, and those upon a subject she esteemed essentially her own. Even in the depth of her despondency it made a certain impression upon her.
She roused herself and glared at him, but there was no shrinking in his face. Trenta's clear round eyes, so honest and loyal in their expression, seemed to pierce her through and through. She fancied, too, that he contemplated her with a sort of horror.
"You have accused Enrica," he continued; "she has cleared herself. You cannot doubt her. Why do you continue to torture her?"
"That is my affair," answered the marchesa, doggedly. "She has deceived me, and defied me. She has outraged the usages of society. Is not that enough?"
"You have brought her up to fear you," interrupted Trenta. "Had she not feared you, she would never have deceived you."
"What is that to you? How dare you question me?" cried the marchesa, the glitter of passion lighting up her eyes. "Is it not enough that by this deception she has foiled me in the whole purpose of my life? I have given her the choice. Resign Nobili, or a convent."
Saying this, she closed her lips tightly. Trenta, in the heat of his enthusiasm for Enrica, had gone too far. He felt it; he hastened to rectify his error.
"Every thing that concerns you and your family, Marchesa Guinigi, is a subject of overwhelming interest to me."
Now the cavaliere spoke in his blandest manner. The smoothness of the courtier seemed to unknit the wrinkles on his face. The look of displeasure melted out of his eyes, the roughness fled from his voice.
"Remember, marchesa, I am your oldest friend. A crisis has arrived; a scandal may ensue. You must now decide."
"I have decided," returned the marchesa; "that decision you have heard." And again her lips closed hermetically.
"But permit me. There are many considerations that will doubtless present themselves to you as necessary ingredients of this decision. If Enrica goes into religion, the Guinigi race is doomed. Why should you, with your own hand, destroy the work of your life? If Enrica will not consent to renounce her engagement to Count Nobili, why should she not marry him? There is no real obstacle other than your will."
No sooner were these daring words uttered, than the cavaliere positively trembled. The marchesa listened to them in ominous silence. Such a possibility had never presented itself for a instant to her imagination. She turned slowly round, pressed her hands tightly on her knees, and darkly eyed him.
"You think that I should consent to such a marriage?" she asked in a deep voice, a mocking smile upon her lips.
"I think, marchesa, that you should sacrifice every thing—yes—every thing." And Trenta, feeling himself on safe ground, repeated the word with an audacity that would have surprised those who only knew him in the polite details of ordinary life. "I think that you should sacrifice every thing to the interests of your house."
This was hitting the marchesa home. She felt it and winced; but her resolution was unshaken.
"Did I not know that you are descended from a line as ancient, though not so illustrious as my own, I should think I was listening to a Jew peddler of Leghorn," she replied, with insolent cynicism.
The cavaliere felt deeply offended, but had the presence of mind to affect a smile, as though what she had said was an excellent joke.
"Nobili shall never mix his blood with the Guinigi—I swear it! Rather let our name die out from the land."
She raised both her hands in the twilight to ratify the imprecation she had hurled upon her race. Her voice died away into the corner of the darkening room; her thoughts wandered. She sat in spirit upon the seigneurial throne, below, in the presence-chamber. Should Nobili sit there, on that hallowed seat of her ancestors?—the old Lombard palace call him master, living—gather his bones with their ashes, dead?—Never! Better far moulder into ruin as they had mouldered. Had she not already permitted herself to be too much influenced? She had offered Enrica in marriage to Count Marescotti, and he had refused her—refused her niece!
Suddenly she shook off the incubus of these thoughts and turned toward
Trenta. He had been watching her anxiously.
"I can never forgive Enrica," she said. "She may not have disgraced herself—that matters little—but she has disgraced me. She must enter a convent; until then I will allow her to remain in my house."
"Exactly," burst in Trenta, again betrayed into undue warmth by this concession.
The cavaliere was old; he had seen that life revolves itself strangely in a circle, from which we may diverge, but from which we seldom disentangle ourselves. Desperate resolves are taken, tragedies are planned, but Fate or Providence intervenes. The old balance pendulates again—the foot falls into the familiar step. Death comes to cut the Gordian knot. The grave-sod covers all that is left, and the worm feeds on the busy brain.
As a man of the world, Trenta was a profound believer in the chapter of accidents.
"I will not put Enrica out of my house," resumed the marchesa, gazing at him suspiciously. (Trenta seemed, she thought, wonderfully interested in Enrica's fate. She had noticed this interest once before. She did not like it. What was Enrica to him? Trenta was her friend.) "But she shall remain on one condition only—Nobili's name must never be mentioned. You can inform her of this, as you have taken already so much upon yourself. Do you hear?"
"Certainly, certainly," answered the chamberlain with alacrity. "You shall be obeyed. I will answer for it—excellent marchesa, you are right, always right"—and he stooped down and gently took her thin fingers in his fat hands, and touched them with his lips.
"I will cause no scandal," she continued, withdrawing her hand. "Once in a convent, Enrica can harm no one."
"No, certainly not," responded Trenta, "and the family will become extinct. This palace and its precious heirlooms will be sold."
The marchesa put out her hand with silent horror.
"It is the case with so many of our great families," continued the impassable Trenta. "Now, on the other hand, Enrica may possibly change her mind; Nobili may change his mind. Circumstances quite unforeseen may occur—who can answer for circumstances?"
The marchesa listened silently. This was always a good sign; she was too obstinate to confess herself convinced. But, spite of her prejudices, her natural shrewdness forbade her to reject absolutely the voice of reason.
"I shall not treat Enrica cruelly," was her reply, "nor will I cause a scandal, but I can never forgive her. By this act of loving Nobili she has separated herself from me irrevocably. Let her renounce him; she has her choice—mine is already made."
The cavaliere listened in silence. Much had been gained, in his opinion, by this partial concession. The subject had been broached, the hated name mentioned, the possibility of the marriage mooted. He rose with a cheerful smile to take his leave.
"Marchesa, it is late—permit me to salute you; you must require repose."
"Yes," she answered, sighing deeply. "It seems to me a year since I entered this room. I must leave Lucca. Enrica cannot, after what has passed, remain here. Thanks to her, I, in the solitude of my own palace, am become the common town-talk. Cesare, I shall leave Lucca to-morrow for my villa of Corellia. Good-night."
The cavaliere again kissed her hand and departed.
"If that weathercock of a thousand colors, that idiot, Marescotti," muttered the cavaliere, as he descended the stairs, "could only be got to give up his impious mission, and marry the dear child, all might yet be right. He has an eye and a tongue that would charm a woman into anything. Alas! alas! what a pasticcio!—made by herself—made by herself and her lawsuits about the defunct Guinigi—damn them!"
It was seldom that the cavaliere used bad words—excuse him.