CHAPTER XIV.
THE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY.
The Princess Isabella opened her eyes, and in their dark and lustrous depths shone returning reason; they glared no more with fever-madness, but were sadder and sweeter than ever.
She gazed at the forms that surrounded her bedside; at the priest, who, with folded hands, was praying at her head; at the cameriera, who knelt beside him; at the young girls, who, gathered in a lovely group at her feet, smiled and wept by turns as she looked upon them; and lastly, she felt a kiss upon her hand, and, looking there, she beheld her brother, who wept with joy.
"Where am I?" asked she, feebly.
"You are with those who love you best, darling," said Fernando, joyfully. "With us, who have prayed so long, that the good God has heard and restored you to life."
"I still live, then," said she, sadly. "And how long have I lain here, friends?"
The priest advanced, and blessing her, took her by the hand. "For four weeks, daughter, you have been unconscious of every thing that passed around you. You see, therefore, that your heavenly Father bids you live."
"Four weeks?" whispered the poor girl. "Then, in three months we shall meet again."
She closed her eyes, and lay silent for a while. At length, the priest, bending close to her ear, whispered, "Think, daughter, of the vows, which, by the memory of your mother, you have made to God!"
"I will remember them," murmured she, sadly.
And from this day she mended, until life and strength were restored to her even as before. She thought of her vow, and made no resistance to the will of Heaven; but she hoped for death, and awaited her three months.
Sustained by these hopes, she recovered. But her heart was wounded past all cure; gone were her smiles and her songs. Quietly, sadly, and solemnly glided away the new life to which she had been born through death.
The first day on which she felt able to leave her room, she sent to crave an audience of her father. She had been told that, during her delirium, he had often visited her chamber; but, since her convalescence, he had not sent so much as an inquiry after her health.
He did not, however, deny the interview she sought. He awaited his daughter, said the messenger, in his own apartments.
The princess shuddered, and a deadly faintness came over her.
"My God! my God! will I ever be able to go through this bitter hour?
Must I, indeed, look upon him who—"
She closed her eyes to shut out the frightful remembrance. Then, gathering all her strength for the trial, she rose to seek her father, and make one last request of him.
With her head thrown proudly back, and her dark eyes flashing with resolve, she entered his cabinet.
The duke was entirely alone. He had dismissed his attendants, and now stood in the centre of the room, awaiting his daughter in gloomy silence. His cold, stern features had grown more repulsive than ever to the unhappy girl; his piercing eyes more revengeful; his thin, pale lips more cruel. He seemed to her a pitiless stranger, and she could not advance to meet him. Powerless and faint, she stood at the door; all her strength gone.
A few moments of anguish went by, and then the duke, extending his hand, said, in a tone of command, "Come hither, Isabella."
She stepped forward, and almost touched his hand, when, shuddering, her arm dropped heavily down, and forgetting all caution, she murmured, in tones of deepest agony, "I cannot! I cannot!"
The duke's eyes shot fire, as he, too, dropped his extended hand, and deep, angry folds wrinkled his forehead.
"Why have you desired this interview?" asked he.
"I have a request to prefer, my father," replied Isabella.
He bent his head. "Speak," said he.
"I come to entreat of my father the permission to take the veil."
"And wherefore, I should like to know?" said the duke, carelessly.
"That I may dedicate my few remaining days to the service of the Lord."
"Girlish folly!" said he, with a contemptuous laugh, while he paced up and down the room.
Isabella made no reply, but stood awaiting a more direct answer to her petition. Suddenly, he came up to her, and spoke:
"I cannot grant your request," said he. "I have other plans for you. The grandchild of the King of Spain cannot be permitted to die a penitent in a cloister; if she has atonement to make for crime, let her make it, not under the serge of the nun, but under the purple of the empress."
"I have no ambition," said Isabella, trembling. "Allow me, I entreat you, to enter a convent."
"I repeat that I have other plans for you. I, too, have no ambition for YOU," said the father, coldly, "but I am ambitious for my house, and through you I shall attain my end. One of the greatest monarchs of Europe has sought your hand for the heir of her throne, and I have resolved that you shall become his wife."
"Fate will refuse it to him—Fate, more merciful than my father. I have but a few weeks to live—before a month has elapsed, I shall be in my grave."
"Go there, if it pleases you," cried the duke, "but die with royal robes about you. You shall not die a nun."
"No one on earth, my father, has a right to detain me. If your highness refuse your consent. I will fly to a convent without your permission. And princely though you be, you shall not drag from the altar the bride of the Lord."
"Ah, you rebel against my authority!" cried the duke, with a look that sent a deadly pang to the heart of his daughter. "Know, that I have power to judge you for such treason, and lay your defiant head upon the block!"
"I do not fear death," replied Isabella; "I await it with impatience."
"Ah! you are possessed with a lovesick desire to die! But hear what I have to say, and mark it well. I will relate to you an affair that took place—whilst you were ill. The only son of one of the noblest families in Parma, the pride of his race, and the idol of his parents, conceived a plot against my house, whose treason was equal to parricide. I learned his designs; and with my own eyes and my own ears, I verified his guilt. He was an archtraitor; he had deserved to die on the scaffold. But I had pity on his family, and spared them the disgrace of a public execution. I took his life secretly, and his parents are spared the shame of knowing how he died. Shall I tell you the name of this dead traitor?"
Isabella raised her hand, and parting her blanched lips, she said hoarsely, "No no! in mercy, no!"
"Very well, then I proceed. This traitor, whom I judged, and to whom I deat his death-stab, had an accomplice. Do you listen?"
Like a broken lily, Isabella's head sank down upon her breast.
"Ah! you listen. The accomplice is placed in a position which makes it inexpedient for me to punish her in her own person. But should she thwart me, should she not fully and cheerfully comply with my demands upon her loyalty, I will see that she suffers more than death in the family of her accomplice. I shall publish the guilt of the dead criminal to the whole world; I will disgrace and dishonor his whole race, and his young sister, with her parents, shall be driven penniless from my realms, to beg or starve in a stranger land."
"Father!" cried the wretched girl, while her every limb quivered with the torture he inflicted, "I am ready to do your will. I will marry whom you choose, and so long as God condemns me to earth, I will obey you in all things. But you shall promise me on your princely honor to shield from all shame or harm the family of—of—the deceased; to befriend his sister, and if she should ever wish to marry, to honor and favor her choice. Promise me this, and as long as I live I submit to your will."
"I promise, on my honor, to do all this, and to forget for their sakes the crime of their son."
"I promise also, on my sacred honor, to accept the husband you have chosen for me. But I will not suffer long, for my life is almost spent."
The duke shrugged his shoulders.
"Your highness," continued his daughter, "will inform me on what day I am to be affianced. I await your commands, and beg your highness's permission to withdraw to my apartments."
"Have you nothing more to say to your father, Isabella?" asked he in a faltering voice.
"Nothing more to say to your royal highness." She courtesied deeply, and, without a glance at her father, left the room.
The duke looked after her with an expression of sorrow. "I have lost her forever!" said he. "When I struck him, I pierced her heart also. Well, so let it be! Better a dead child than a dishonored house!"
He then rang a little golden bell, and ordered preparations to be made for another grand hunt on the morrow.
Isabella accepted her destiny nobly. She resolved to fulfil her promises strictly; but she hoped that God would be satisfied with the sacrifice, and release her before the day of her nuptials.
Finally came the day on which, for the third time, she had hoped to die. She felt a solemn joy steal over her heart, and she desired her maids of honor to deck her in bridal white. Her dark hair was wreathed with orange-blossoms, and in her bosom she wore an orange-bud. She was lovely beyond expression, and her attendants whispered among themselves, though Isabella neither saw nor heard them. She who awaited death took no heed of what was going on around her in the palace.
And yet her stake in that palace was great. On the day before the embassy had arrived, which was to change her fate, and open to her a new life at the court of the Austrian empress.
The duke had received his guests with royal courtesy. But he had besought the count to postpone his interview with the princess until the morrow; for with cruel mockery of his child's sorrow, Philip of Parma had contrived that the day on which she had hoped to meet her dead lover, should be the day of her betrothal to the Archduke of Austria.
Isabella was the only person in the palace who had not heard of the arrival. She had withdrawn into her private cabinet, and there she counted every pulsation of her heart. She dared not hope to die a natural death; she was looking forward to some accident that was to release her from life; something direct from the hand of God she thought would, on that day, make good the prophecy of her lover.
She hoped, watched, prayed. She was startled from her solitude by a knocking at the door, and her father's voice called for admission.
The princess, obedient to her promise, rose and opened the door. Her father surveyed her with a smile of derision. "You have done well," said he, "to deck yourself as a bride; not as the bride of Death, but as the affianced wife of the LIVING lover who will one day make you empress of Austria. His ambassador awaits us now in the great hall of state. Follow me into the next room, where your maids of honor are assembled to attend you. Mark me, Isabella! When we arrive in the hall, the ambassador will advance, and in terms befitting the honor conferred, he will request your acceptance of the archduke's hand. I leave it to your tact and discretion to answer him as becomes the princess of a great and royal house."
"And will your highness perform your promise to ME?" asked Isabella calmly. "Shall his parents live secure in possession of their noble name and estates; and shall his sister be the special object of your highness's protection and favor?"
"I will do all this, provided you give me satisfaction as relates to your marriage."
Isabella bowed. "Then I am ready to accompany your royal highness to the hall of state, and to accept with courtesy the offer of the Austrian ambassador."
Forth went the beautiful martyr and her train through the gorgeous apartments of the palace, until they reached the hall of the throne.
In the centre of the hall the duke left his daughter and her attendants, while he mounted the throne and took his seat upon the ducal chair.
And now advanced Count Bathiany. With all the fervor which her matchless beauty inspired, he begged of the princess her fair hand for his future sovereign the Archduke of Austria. As the count ceased, every eye turned toward the infanta. She had listened with calm dignity to the words of the ambassador, and her large, melancholy eyes had been riveted upon his face while he delivered his errand. There was a pause—a few moments were needed by that broken heart to hush its moanings, and bare itself for the sacrifice. The brow of the duke darkened, and he was about to interpose, when he saw his daughter bow her head. Then she spoke, and every one bent forward to listen to the silvery tones of her voice.
"I feel deeply honored," said she, "by the preference of her imperial majesty of Austria; an alliance with her eldest son is above my deserts; but since it is their desire, I accept the great honor conferred upon me. I regret, however, that their majesties should have directed their choice toward me; for I am convinced that I shall not live long enough to fulfil the destiny to which this marriage calls me." [Footnote: The infanta's own words; as veritably historical as is this whole relation of her death-prophecy and its unhappy fulfilment. See Wraxall, "Memoirs of the Courts," etc., and Caroline Pichler.]
When at last the ceremonies of this day of agony were ended; when the infanta had dismissed her ladies of honor, and was once more alone—alone with God and with the past, she threw herself upon her couch, and, with her hands meekly folded across her breast, she lay, looking up, far beyond the palace dome to heaven.
There she prayed until midnight, and when the clock had told the hour, she arose to the new life that awaited her, with its new promises, new expectations, new ties—but no new hopes.
"Heavenly Father," exclaimed she, "it has begun, and I will bear it to the bitter end! I am now the betrothed, and soon will be the wife of another. If I have sinned in my consent to marry one whom I can never love, pardon me, O Lord! and hear me vow that I will faithfully fulfil my duty toward him. I am the affianced of another! Farewell, my beloved, farewell, FOR THREE LONG YEARS!"