CHAPTER IX.
NERA.
Close to the Church of San Michele, where a brazen archangel with outstretched wings flaunts in the blue sky, is the narrow, crypt-like street of San Salvador. Here stands the Boccarini Palace. It is an ancient structure, square and large, with an overhanging roof and open, pillared gallery. On the first floor there is a stone balcony. Four rows of windows divide the front. The lower ones, barred with iron, are dismal to the eye. Over the principal entrance are the Boccarini arms, carved on a stone escutcheon, supported by two angels, the whole so moss-eaten the details cannot be traced. Above is a marquis's coronet in which a swallow has built its nest. Both in and out it is a house where poverty has set its seal. The family is dying out. When Marchesa Boccarini dies, the palace will be sold, and the money divided among her daughters.
As dusk was settling into night a carriage rattled along the deserted street. The horses—a pair of splendid bays—struck sparks out of the granite pavement. With a bang they draw up at the entrance, under an archway, guarded by a grille of rusty iron. A bell is rung; it only echoes through the gloomy court. The bell was rung again, but no one came. At last steps were heard, and a dried-up old man, with a face like parchment, and little ferret eyes, appeared, hastily dragging his arms into a coat much too large for him.
He shuffled to the front and bowed. Taking a key from his pocket he unlocked the iron gates, then planted himself on the threshold, and turned his ear toward the well-appointed brougham, and Count Nobili seated within.
"Do the ladies receive?" Nobili called out. The old man nodded, bringing his best ear and ferret eyes to bear upon him.
"Yes, the ladies do receive. Will the excellency descend?"
Count Nobili jumped out and hurried through the archway into a court surrounded by a colonnade.
It is very dark. The palace rises upward four lofty stories. Above is a square patch of sky, on which a star trembles. The court is full of damp, unwholesome odors. The foot slips upon the slimy pavement. Nobili stopped. The old man came limping after, buttoning his coat together.
"Ah! poor me!—The excellency is young!" He spoke in the odd, muffled voice, peculiar to the deaf. "The excellency goes so fast he will fall if he does not mind. Our court-yard is very damp; the stairs are old."
"Which is the way up-stairs?" Nobili asked, impatiently. "It is so dark I have forgotten the turn."
"Here, excellency—here to the right. By the Madonna there, in the niche, with the light before it. A thousand excuses! The excellency will excuse me, but I have not yet lit the lamp on the stairs. I was resting. There are so many visitors to the Signora Marchesa. The excellency will not tell the Signora Marchesa that it was dark upon the stairs? Per pieta!"
The shriveled old man placed himself full in Nobili's path, and held out his hands like claws entreatingly.
"A thousand devils!—no," was Nobili's irate reply, pushing him back.
"Let me go up; I shall say nothing. Cospetto! What is it to me?"
"Thanks! thanks! The excellency is full of mercy to an old, overworked servant. There was a time when the Boccarini—"
Nobili did not wait to hear more, but strode through the darkness at hazard, to find the stairs.
"Stop! stop! the excellency will break his limbs against the wall!" the old man shouted.
He fumbled in his pocket, and drew out some matches. He struck one against the wall, held it above his head, and pointed with his bony finger to a broad stone stair under an inner arch.
Nobili ascended rapidly; he was in no mood for delay. The old man, standing at the foot, struck match after match to light him.
"Above, excellency, you will find our usual lamps. You must go on to the second story."
On the landing at the first floor there was still a little daylight from a window as big as if set in the tribune of a cathedral. Here a lamp was placed on an old painted table. Some moth-eaten tapestry hung from a mildewed wall. Here and there a rusty nail had given way, and the stuff fell in downward folds. Nobili paused. His head was hot and dizzy. He had dined well, and he had drunk freely. His eyes traveled upward to the old tapestry—(it was the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod the cancan of the day). Something in the face and figure of the girl recalled Nera to him, or he fancied it—his mind being full of her. Nobili envied Herod in a dreamy way, who, with round, leaden eyes, a crown upon his head—watched the dancing girl as she flung about her lissome limbs. Nobili envied Herod—and the thought came across him, how pleasant it would be to sit royally enthroned, and see Nera gambol so! From that—quicker than I can write it—his thoughts traveled backward to that night when he had danced with Nera at the Orsetti ball. Again the refrain of that waltz buzzed in his ear. Again the measure rose and fell in floods of luscious sweetness—again Nera lay within his arms—her breath was on his cheek—the perfume of the flowers in her flossy hair was wafted in the air—the blood stirred in his veins.
The old man said truly. All the way up the second stair was lit by little lamps, fed by mouldy oil; and all the way up that waltz rang in Nobili's ear. It mounted to his brain like fumes of new wine tapped from the skin. A green door of faded baize faced him on the upper landing, and another bell—a red tassel fastened to a bit of whipcord. He rang it hastily. This time a servant came promptly. He carried in his hand a lamp of brass.
"Did the ladies receive?"
"They did," was the answer; and the servant held the lamp aloft to light Nobili into the anteroom.
This anteroom was as naked as a barrack. The walls were painted in a Raphaelesque pattern, the coronet and arms of the Boccarini in the centre.
Count Nobili and the servant passed through many lofty rooms of faded splendor. Chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, and reflected the light of the brass lamp on a thousand crystal facets. The tall mirrors in the antique frames repeated it. In a cavern-like saloon, hung with rows of dark pictures upon amber satin, Nobili and the servant stopped before a door. The servant knocked; A voice said, "Enter." It was the voice of Marchesa Boccarini. She was sitting with her three daughters. A lamp, with a colored shade, stood in the centre of a small room, bearing some aspect of life and comfort. The marchesa and two of her daughters were working at some mysterious garments, which rapidly vanished out of sight. Nera was leaning back on a sofa, superbly idle—staring idly at an opposite window, where the daylight still lingered. When Count Nobili was announced, they all rose and spoke together with the loud peacock voices, and the rapid utterance, which in Italy are supposed to mark a special welcome. Strange that in the land of song the talking voices of women should be so harsh and strident! Yet so it is.
"How long is it since we have seen you, Count Nobili?" It was the sad-faced marchesa who spoke, and tried to smile a welcome to him. "I have to thank you for many inquiries, and all sorts of luxuries sent to my dear child. But we expected you. You never came."
The two sisters echoed, "You never came."
Nera did not speak then, but when they had finished, she rose from the sofa and stood before Nobili drawn up to her full height, radiant in sovereign beauty. "I have to thank you most." As Nera spoke, her cheeks flushed, and she dropped her hand into his. It was a simple act, but full of purpose as Nera did it. Nera intended it should be so. She reseated herself. As his eye met hers, Nobili grew crimson. The twilight and the shaded lamp hid this in part, but Nera observed it, and noted it for future use.
Count Nobili placed himself beside the marchesa.
"I am overwhelmed with shame," he said. "What you say is too true. I had intended coming. Indeed, I waited until your daughter"—and he glanced at Nera—"could receive me, and satisfy me herself she was not hurt. I longed to make my penitent excuses for the accident."
"Oh! it was nothing," said Nera, with a smile, answering for her mother.
"What I suffered, no words can tell," continued, Nobili. "Even now I shudder to think of it—to be the cause—"
"No, not the cause," answered Marchesa Boccarini.
The elder sisters echoed—
"Not the cause."
"It was the ribbon," continued the marchesa. "Nera was entangled with the ribbon when she rose; she did not know it."
"I ought to have held her up," returned Nobili with a glance at Nera, who, with a kind of queenly calm, looked him full in the face with her bold, black eyes.
"I assure you, marchesa, it was the horror of what I had done that kept me from calling on you."
This was not true, and Nera knew it was not true. Nobili had not come, because he dreaded his weakness and her power. Nobili had not come, because he doted on Enrica to that excess, a thought alien to her seemed then to him a crime. What folly! Now he knew Enrica better! All that was changed.
"We have felt very grateful," went on to say the marchesa, "I assure you, Count Nobili, very grateful."
The poor lady was much exercised in spirit as to how she could frame an available excuse for leaving the count alone with Nera. Had she only known beforehand, she would have arranged a little plan to do so, naturally. But it must be done, she knew. It must be done at any price, or Nera would never forgive her.
"You have been so agreeably occupied, too," Nera said, in a firm, full voice. "No wonder, Count Nobili, you had no time to visit us."
There was a mute reproach in these few words that made Nobili wince.
"I have been absent," he replied, much confused.
"Yes, absent in mind and body," and Nera laughed a cruel little laugh. "You have been at Corellia, I believe?" she added, significantly, fixing him with her lustrous eyes.
"Yes, I have been at Corellia, shooting." Nobili shrank from shame at the lack of courtesy on his part which had made these social lies needful. How brilliant Nera was!
A type of perfect womanhood. Fresh, and strong, and healthy—a mother for heroes.
"We have heard of you," went on Nera, throwing her grand head backward, a quiet deliberation in each word, as if she were dropping them out, word by word, like poison. "A case of Perseus and Andromeda, only you rescued the lady from the flames. You half killed me, Count Nobili, and en revanche you have saved another lady. She must be very grateful."
"O Nera!" one of her sisters exclaimed, reproachfully. These innocent sisters never could accommodate themselves to Nera's caustic tongue.
Nera gave her sister a look. She rose at once; then the other sister rose also. They both slipped out of the room.
"Now," thought the marchesa, "I must go, too."
"May I be permitted," she said, rising, "before I leave the room to speak to my confessor, who is waiting for me, on a matter of business"—this was an excellent sham, and sounded decorous and natural—"may I be permitted, Count Nobili, to congratulate you on your approaching marriage? I do not know Enrica Guinigi, but I hear that she is lovely."
Nobili bowed with evident constraint.
"And I," said Nera, softly, directing a broadside upon him from her brilliant eyes—"allow me to congratulate you also."
"Thank you," murmured Nobili, scarcely able to form the words.
"Excuse me," the marchesa said. She courtesied to Nobili and left the room.
Nobili and Nera were now alone. Nobili watched her under his eyelids. Yes, she was splendid. A luxuriant form, a skin mellow and ruddy as a ripe peach, and such eyes!
Nera was silent. She guessed his thoughts. She knew men so well. Men had been her special study. Nera was only twenty-four, but she was clever, and would have excelled in any thing she pleased. To draw men to her, as the magnet draws the needle, was the passion of her life; whether she cared for them or not, to draw them. Not to succeed argued a want of skill. That maddened her. She was keen and hot upon the scent, knocking over her man as a sportsman does his bird, full in the breast. Her aim was marriage. Count Nobili would have suited her exactly. She had felt for him a warmth that rarely quickened her pulses. Nobili had evaded her. But revenge is sweet. Now his hour is come.
"Count Nobili"—Nera's tempting looks spoke more than words—"come and sit down by me." She signed to him to place himself upon the sofa.
Nobili rose as she bade him. He came upon his fate without a word. Seated so near to Nera, he gazed into her starry eyes, and felt it did him good.
"You look ill," Nera said, tuning her voice to a tone of tender pity; "you have grown older too since I last saw you. Is it love, or grief, or jealousy, or what?"
Nobili heaved a deep sigh. His hand, which rested near hers, slipped forward, and touched her fingers. Nera withdrew them to smooth the braids of her glossy hair. While she did so she scanned Nobili closely. "You are not a triumphant lover, certainly. What is the matter?"
"You are very good to care," answered Nobili, sighing again, gazing into her face; "once I thought that my fate did touch you."
"Yes, once," Nera rejoined. "Once—long ago." She gave an airy laugh that grated on Nobili's ears. "But we meet so seldom."
"True, true," he answered hurriedly, "too seldom." His manner was most constrained. It was plain his mind was running upon some unspoken thought.
"Yes," Nera said. "Spite of your absence, however you make yourself remembered. You give us so much to talk of! Such a succession of surprises!"
One by one Nera's phrases dropped out, suggesting so much behind.
Nobili, greatly excited, felt he must speak or flee.
"I must confess," she added, giving a stealthy glance out of the corners of her eyes, "you have surprised me. When do you bring your wife home, Count Nobili?" As Nera asked this question she bent over Nobili, so that her breath just swept his heated cheek.
"Never, perhaps!" cried Nobili, wildly. He could contain himself no longer. His heart beat almost to bursting. A desperate seduction was stealing over him. "Never, perhaps!" he repeated.
Nera gave a little start; then she drew back and leaned against the sofa, gazing at him.
"I am come to you, Nera"—Nobili spoke in a hoarse voice—his features worked with agitation—"I am come to tell you all; to ask you what I shall do. I am distracted, heart-broken, degraded! Nera, dear Nera, will you help me? In mercy say you will!"
He had grasped her hand—he was covering it with hot kisses. He was so heated with wine and beauty, and a sense of wrong, he had lost all self-command.
Nera did not withdraw her hand. Her eyelids dropped, and she replied, softly:
"Help you? Oh! so willingly. Could you see my heart you would understand me."
She stopped.
"You can make all right," urged Nobili, maddened by her seductions.
Again that waltz was buzzing in his ears. Nobili was about to clasp her in his arms, and ask her he knew not what, when Nera rose, and seated herself upon a chair opposite to him.
"You leave me," cried Nobili, piteously, seizing her dress. "That is not helping me."
"I must know what you want," she answered, settling the folds of her dress about her. "Of course, in making this marriage, you have weighed all the consequences? I take that for granted."
As Nera spoke she leaned her head upon her hand; the rich beauty of her face was brought under the lamp's full light.
"I thought I had," was Nobili's reply, recalled by her movement to himself, and speaking with more composure—"I thought I had—but within the last three hours every thing is changed. I have been insulted at the club."
"Ah!—you must expect that sort of thing if you marry Enrica Guinigi.
That is inevitable."
Nobili knit his brows. This was hard from her.
"What reason do you give for this?" he asked, trying to master his feelings. "I came to ask you this."
"Reason, my dear count?" and a smile parted Nera's lips. "A very obvious reason. Why force me to name it? No one can respect you if you make such a marriage. You will be always liked—you are so charming." She paused to fling an amorous glance upon him. "Why did you select the Guinigi girl?" The question was sharply put. "The marchesa would never receive you. Why choose her niece?"
"Because I liked her." Nobili was driven to bay. "A man chooses the woman he likes."
"How strange!" exclaimed Nera, throwing up her hands. "How strange!—A pale-faced school-girl! But—ha! ha!"—(that discordant laugh almost betrayed her)—"she is not so, it seems."
Nobili changed color. With every word Nera uttered, he grew hot or cold, soothed or wild, by turns. Nera watched it all. She read Nobili like a book.
"How cunning Enrica Guinigi must be!—very cunning!" Nera repeated as if the idea had just struck her. "The marchesa's tool!—They are so poor!—Her niece! Chè vuole!—The family blood! Anyhow, Enrica has caught you, Nobili."
Nera leaned back, drew out a fan from behind a cushion, and swayed it to and fro.
"Not yet," gasped Nobili—"not yet."
And Nobili had listened to Nera's cruel words, and had not risen up and torn out the lying tongue that uttered them! He had sat and heard Enrica torn to pieces as a panting dove is severed by a hawk limb by limb! Even now Nobili's better nature, spite of the glamour of this woman, told him he was a coward to listen to such words, but his good angel had veiled her wings and fled.
"I am glad you say 'not yet.' I hope you will take time to consider. If I can help you, you may command me, Count Nobili." And Nera paused and sighed.
"Help me, Nera!—You can save me!" He started to his feet. "I am so wretched—so wounded—so desperate!"
"Sit down," she answered, pointing to the sofa.
Mechanically he obeyed.
"You are nothing of all this if you do not marry Enrica Guinigi; if you do, you are all you say."
"What am I to do?" exclaimed Nobili. "I have signed the contract."
"Break it"—Nera spoke the words boldly out—"break it, or you will be dishonored. Do you think you can live in Lucca with a wife that you have bought?"
Nobili bounded from his chair.
"O God!" he said, and clinched his hands.
"You must be calm," she said, hastily, "or my mother will hear you." (All she can do, she thinks, is not worse than Nobili deserves, after that ball.) "Bought!—Yes. Will any one believe the marchesa would have given her niece to you otherwise?"
Nobili was pale and silent now. Nera's words had called up long trains of thought, opening out into horrible vistas. There was a dreadful logic about all she said that brought instant conviction with it. All the blood within him seemed whirling in his brain.
"But Nera, how can I—in honor—break this marriage?" he urged.
"Break it! well, by going away. No one can force you to marry a girl who allowed herself to be hawked about here and there—offered to Marescotti, and refused—to others probably."
"She may not have known it," said Nobili, roused by her bitter words.
"Oh, folly! Why come to me, Count Nobili? You are still in love with her."
At these words Nobili rose and approached Nera. Something in her expression checked him; he drew back. With all her allurements, there was a gulf between them Nobili dared not pass.
"O Nera! do not drive me mad! Help me, or banish me."
"I am helping you," she replied, with what seemed passionate earnestness. "Have you seen the sonnet?"
"No."
"If you mean to marry her, do not. Take advice. My mother has seen it," Nera added, with well-simulated horror. "She would not let me read it."
Now this was the sheerest malice. Madame Boccarini had never seen the sonnet. But if she had, there was not one word in the sonnet that might not have been addressed to the Blessed Virgin herself.
"No, I will not see the sonnet," said Nobili, firmly. "Not that I will marry her, but because I do not choose to see the woman I loved befouled. If it is what you say—and I believe you implicitly—let it lie like other dirt, I will not stir it."
"A generous fellow!" thought Nera. "How I could have loved him! But not now, not now."
"You have been the object of a base fraud," continued Nera. Nera would follow to the end artistically; not leave her work half done.
"She has deceived me. I know she has deceived me," cried Nobili, with a pang he could not hide. "She has deceived me, and I loved her!"
His voice sounded like the cry of a hunted animal.
Nera did not like this. Her work was not complete. Nobili's obstinate clinging to Enrica chafed her.
"Did Enrica ever speak to you of her engagement to Count Marescotti?" she asked. She grew impatient, and must probe the wound.
"Never," he answered, shrinking back.
"Heavens! What falseness! Why, she has passed days and days alone with him."
"No, not alone," interrupted Nobili, stung with a sense of his own shame.
"Oh, you excuse her!" Nera laughed bitterly. "Poor count, believe me.
I tell you what others conceal."
Nobili shuddered. His face grew black as night.
"Do not see that sonnet if you persist in marriage. If not, your course is clear—fly. If Enrica Guinigi has the smallest sense of decency, she cannot urge the marriage."
And Nobili heard this in silence! Oh, shame, and weakness and passion of hot blood; and women's eyes, and cruel, bitter tongues; and jealousy, maddening jealousy, hideous, formless, vague, reaching he knew not whither I Oh, shame!
"Write to her, and say you have discovered that she was in league with her aunt, and had other lovers. Every one knows it."
"But, Nera, if I do, will you comfort me? I shall need it." Nobili opened both his arms. His eyes clung wildly to hers. She was his only hope.
Nera did not move; only she turned her head away to hide her face from him. She dared not let Nobili move her. Poor Nobili! She could have loved him dearly!
Seeing her thus, Nobili's arms dropped to his side hopelessly; a wan look came over his face.
"Forgive me! Oh, forgive me, Nera! I offer you a broken heart; have pity on me! Say, can you love me, Nera? Only a little. Speak! tell me!"
Nobili was on his knees before her; every feature of his bright young face formed into an agony of entreaty.
There was a flash of triumph in Nera's black eyes as she bent them on Nobili, that chilled him to the soul. Kneeling before her, he feels it. He doubts her love, doubts all. She has wrought upon him until he is desperate.
"Rise, dear Nobili," Nera whispered softly, touching his lips with hers, but so slightly. "To-morrow—come again to-morrow. I can say nothing now." Her manner was constrained. She spoke in little sentences. "It is late. Supper is ready. My mother waiting. To-morrow." She pressed the hand he had laid imploringly upon her knee. She touched the curls upon his brow with her light finger-tips; but those fixed, despairing eyes beneath she dared not meet.
"Not one word?" urged Nobili, in a faltering voice. "Send me away without one word of hope? I shall struggle with horrible thoughts all night. O Nera, speak one word—but one!" He clasped her hands, and looked up into her face. He dared do no more. "Love me a little, Nera," he pleaded, and he laid her warm, full hand upon his throbbing heart.
Nera trembled. She rose hastily from her chair, and raised Nobili up also.
"I—I—" (she hesitated, and avoided his passionate glance)—"I have given you good advice. To-morrow I will tell you more about myself."
"To-morrow, Nera! Why not to-night?"
Spite of himself Nobili was shocked at her reserve. She was so self-possessed. He had flung his all upon the die.
"You have advised me," he answered, stung by her coldness. "You have convinced me, I shall obey you. Now I must go, unless you bid me stay."
Again his eyes pleaded with hers; again found no response. Nera held out her hand to him.
"To-morrow," the full, ripe lips uttered—"to-morrow."
Seeing that he hesitated, Nera pointed with a gesture toward the door, and Nobili departed.
When the door had closed, and the sound of his retreating footsteps along the empty rooms had ceased, Nera raised her hand, then let it fall heavily upon the table.
"I have done it!" she exclaimed, triumphantly. "Now I can bear to think of that Orsetti ball. Poor Nobili! if he had spoken then! But he did not. It is his own fault."
After standing a minute or two thinking, Nora uncovered the lamp. Then she took it up in both her hands, stepped to a mirror that hung near, and, turning the light hither and thither, looked at her blooming face, in full and in profile. Then she replaced the lamp upon the table, yawned, and left the room.
Next morning a note was put into Count Nobili's hand at breakfast. It bore the Boccarini arms and the initials of the marchesa. The contents were these:
MOST ESTEEMED COUNT: As a friend of our family, I have the honor of informing you that the marriage of my dear daughter Nera with Prince Ruspoli is arranged, and will take place in a week. I hope you will be present. I have the honor to assure you of my most sincere and distinguished sentiments.
"MARCHESA AGNESA BOCCARINI."
In the night train from Lucca that evening, Count Nobili was seated.
"He was about to travel," he had informed his household. "Later he
would send them his address." Before he left, he wrote a letter to
Enrica, and sent it to Corellia.