Читать книгу Because of These Things - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 9

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The Contessa found Mr. Middleton among the company lounging in front of the Palazzo Odaleschi. She spoke to him, graciously and decisively, of his friend, and the Englishman, who had what he termed 'Moutray's confounded foolish letter' in his pocket, began to think that there had been more than mere whim in the flight of Francis, so clearly did the Contessa let it be understood that it would be for Mr. Moutray's own good to leave Bologna at once.

Curiosity and some apprehension for the safety of his travelling companion sent Henry Middleton round to the "Corona d'Oro" as soon as he could unconspicuously leave the company.

It was now nearing the fall of evening, the first dusk began to creep over the long afternoon, but Francis Moutray was still at the inn.

Mr. Middleton found him, in the bare parlour with the painted walls, wearing his travelling coat, his hat on his knees, smoking a long clay pipe and staring out of the window at the little garden where some fowls scratched the dust under the vine-covered arbours.

"Eh, Frank," cried Mr. Middleton, "what turn is this?"

Francis Moutray showed a face so violent in expression that the Englishman's jovial humour was checked at once; he had always known that the mobile features were capable of expressing passion, but he had not looked for this transformation. Mr. Moutray spoke quietly, however.

"Have you also left the Palazzo Odaleschi?" he asked.

"To find you, Frank, to ask you how you have offended the Contessa."

Francis turned his smouldering eyes away.

"I offend the Contessa?" he repeated slowly.

"She hinted plainly that you had better leave Bologna no later than to-night for your own sake," said Mr. Middleton, flinging his hat on the table and thrusting his hands jauntily into his embroidered pocket-holes. "What is it, Frank? Hast thou an intrigue at last?"

Francis was silent, but obviously startled and amazed.

"'Twill be too dark to start soon," continued Mr. Middleton, "and 'twere best you went."

"She threatens?" asked Francis moodily, knocking out his pipe. "What can she mean? I do not think I shall leave Bologna."

"Why? You meant to this morning."

"I have changed my mind," replied Francis gloomily. "I am not well; I have a touch of fever. I shall stay till to-morrow."

"There is some mystery here," cried Mr. Middleton impatiently. "What occurred between you and the Contessa during those few hours you were in her house?"

"I never spoke to her," returned Francis shortly.

"But she is not a woman," persisted the other, "to talk idly. She has some grievance against you, believe me. And she is near as powerful in this city as the Pope himself."

"A fitting lieutenant to His Holiness!" said Francis fiercely. "I am not afraid of this woman, even though she has all the bravoes in Bologna in her pay, as I doubt not she has. And as she has seen fit to threaten me, for that reason I shall remain."

"But confound me, Frank," cried Mr. Middleton, "what has she against you?"

Francis did not answer; he did not himself know. He held it inconceivable that Giovanna should have spoken to her mother about that meeting in the dawn, and he flattered himself that the young Contessa did not herself know the reason of his flight, so utterly new was he to this type of woman. He knew that Giovanna was extraordinary, but he clothed her, unconsciously, in the conventional modesty and stupidity, reserve and shrinking, that he had always been taught to associate with her sex.

Nor, in his pride and arrogance, could he believe that a creature such as the Contessa would take offence if he did deign to notice her daughter. Indeed, he now thought that perhaps she hoped to frighten him into a formal offer, since he had heard that she was looking for a husband for the girl, and he smiled at the idea. Such a marriage was as utterly preposterous in his estimation as it was in that of the Contessa.

But to Mr. Middleton, alert with idle curiosity, enlightenment suddenly came: he remembered a remark Francis had made the day before, he recalled the disappearance of Vittoria's youngest daughter from the company.

"'Tis the Contessa Giovanna!" he exclaimed. "Thou hast been caught in the springe of love at last!"

"What makes you say that?" cried Francis violently, and rising as he spoke.

Mr. Middleton laughed.

"Confess you were caught in conversation with the lady, Frank. The Odaleschi is a very Argus where her daughters are concerned. I warned you."

"She overacts the part," returned Francis scornfully. "She is a fitting sentinel for youthful innocence! I hate her, Harry."

"But Giovanna?"

Francis would not use the heathen, Papist name.

"The Contessa's daughter and I could never have anything in common," he said half angrily, half mournfully. "What would my marriage with such an one mean but black misery?"

Mr. Middleton started in real surprise.

"Marriage? By Heaven!" he exclaimed.

Francis whitened at having betrayed where his wild thoughts were leading him.

"Is she not an honourable woman?" he asked fiercely, stung into further indiscretion.

"She is not the wife for you, Frank. You have fever, indeed, or are deeper in love than ever I thought to see you. Ye heavens! Giovanna Odaleschi!"

Francis' face took on an expression akin to that which had come over Giovanna's when her mother laughed at her lover, but the long training of reserve helped him to control his leaping, unreasonable anger.

He answered quietly:

"I do not think to see her again. I shall leave Bologna to-morrow."

Mr. Middleton thought this course the wisest too, and was about to say so, but a spirit of mischief checked him. He had often wanted to see the austere, cold, moody Francis moved, and the idea of his being roused at last, and by the daughter of a woman whose name was a byword in Italy, amused him immensely.

The rage and disgust of the Contessa at a heretic foreign suitor for her daughter, the scorn and loathing of Francis for the Papist and the wanton, the immense pride of each, the desire of Mr. Moutray to go, the alluring figure of Giovanna drawing him to stay—all these things seemed to Mr. Middleton to hold the elements of a very pretty drama, and one he was not minded to miss. He had no wish to do Francis Moutray any harm; he had, indeed, a certain affection for him, but he was a man of little imagination, and he did not see the potentialities of tragedy in the diversion he was arranging for himself by the discomfiture of a travelling companion who was never congenial and often moody to discourtesy.

Affecting a careless air, but with a look of amused malice, he said:

"Leave Bologna, Frank, but, as you say, what need to hasten as if you were afraid of the girl? To-morrow will do, since you must leave me—but spare me your company to-night.".

The manner of Francis Moutray responded instantly to that of his friend; he became cold and indifferent, and stretched and yawned carelessly.

"Where are you going to-night?" he asked lazily.

"The Palazzo Rossi—I met the Marchese yesterday and he gave me welcome to the gala he holds to-night. 'Twill be a grand fête, Frank, such as one only sees in Italy. Will you not come?"

Francis Moutray hesitated; he looked out of the window where the warm purple of the Italian dusk was falling, giving magic even to the confined garden and the dusty vine arbours. He wanted to stay, he wanted to taste to the full the idleness, the luxury, the nameless air of pleasure that was so insidiously alluring; but, apart from being ashamed of such desires, had he not vowed to put miles of the long white road to Milan between himself and Giovanna Odaleschi?

"You said you were not leaving to-night," put in Mr. Middleton, who knew perfectly well that Francis had only made that statement in pique, "and surely you might as well be amusing yourself as sitting in this miserable parlour?"

"Indeed, I am not well," said Francis, but he felt the excuse was childish, and amended it by rising with a laugh on his lips, "but I am well enough to go to your masque with you, Harry. I have been a sorry companion to you, and you will be glad to see me ride homewards," he added, and the smile that still lingered on his dark, thoughtful face eradicated the gloomy and frowning lines in a sudden and lovable fashion so that he looked, in his slimness and erectness and grace, only a youth—a handsome youth with melancholy in his blood.

"You will be happier in Scotland," responded Mr. Middleton, "where there are no Giovanna Odaleschis to disturb you!"

"Cease!" cried Francis, and the blood tingled to a flush in his cheeks. "Say no more of that foolish fancy of mine. I meant nothing serious."

Mr. Middleton narrowed his eyes humorously, then pulled his watch out of his laced pocket.

"I will order a coach and call for you at nine, Frank," he said. "I am still a guest of the Odaleschi—they have an entertainment to-night, but they will not notice my absence."

He thus skilfully informed Francis that Giovanna would not be at the ball—a point Mr. Moutray had already resolved to be certain on before he himself joined the fête at the Palazzo Rossi.

"I shall be ready," he answered indifferently, and Mr. Middleton left him and rode back to the Palazzo Odaleschi.

Francis rang for his man, ordered his clothes to be put ready, ordered the barber to be fetched, and his dinner to be served early, adding that he would stay this night in Bologna, but no longer; the horses and baggage were to be ready with the dawn.

When the servant had left him, Francis remained at the window.

He would not see her again, he told himself, he would go back to the honourable, quiet, careful life such as his father had lived, such as he meant to live, such as he had been trained to live all his days. Yet he wished he had never come to Bologna with a force that showed how deeply the allurement of the city and the woman had entered into his soul.

Both were the final realization of many vague, stinging and, as he felt, wicked dreams; warmth, softness, idleness, beauty, luxury, and a fair, useless, loving woman—dreams of these devices of the devil had often troubled his austere, repressed youth; and the mingled longing for them, and spurning himself for the longing, and the dreading of the eye of God whose beam was directed into his soul and could read there his wickedness, had been the cause of the black melancholies that at times swept over his spirit as a storm of dark waters will sweep over and overwhelm a strong swimmer until he can no more lift his head above them.

But hitherto the temptations had been dreams only, obscure suggestions of the blood, whisperings of sleepless nights, visions and fancies founded on his country's vast lore of ballad and tale and the wild legends that were rife in his native Ayrshire.

Now this wicked life was no longer a dream; he saw it before his eyes. The woman was no longer the Elfin Queen who had lured Thomas the Rhymer away, but a human creature, made for love, who had looked at him, bent towards him—stood ready—ah, heart, heart, he knew it!—for his touch, his kiss, his embrace.

He rose abruptly and began to pace the small but lofty room. A dull triumph steadied the unhappiness of his unsatisfied desires. He had not fallen. He would turn his back on Giovanna, on Bologna, on Italy, and take up again the thread of his rigid life as a Calvinist laird, and he would be stronger than before, for he would have faced the bait and refused it—despised it and gone his way.

And he did despise these worldly things; he was austere and intolerant as well as passionate, his gloomy creed suited him, and he clung to it with more tenacity and felt for it even a stronger veneration than men usually feel for an hereditary religion. He hated the Papists as the descendant of the persecuted alone can hate the persecutor, and he was arrogantly proud of the high standing of his name, the sacrifices his family had made for country and faith, his substantial position (founded on the reward King William had given his grandfather for loyal support) and grave unblemished record; therefore one part of him did truly scorn these cheap and soft delights of love and luxury and idleness and ease—and yet—and yet—there was that in him that hungered and cried out and writhed under repression, and threatened a terrible revenge.

He went up to his room presently—the same he had occupied that first night he had slept in Bologna—but, either from complaisance (and he had already noticed that the Romanists did not wear their bigotry as openly as he did) or carelessness the Madonna had not been replaced.

The windows were open on the still lingering rosy light that fell in prodigal beauty over the gardens and palaces of Bologna, and the room was lit by two candles on the bureau that cast a soft illumination, yellow as an August moon.

A certain scent, either of some flower that Francis did not know (and he knew very few by name or sight), or of some wine from a cask being opened below, or some perfume or unguent somewhere spilt or scattered, filled the warm air; the bareness, the dirt, and gauntness of the room were concealed by the wonder of the fading light and the sweet fluttering shadows the two tapers cast.

On the bed were Francis' grey satin suit and his ruffles of Bruges lace, his embroidered sword-belt, his silk stockings, and his red-heeled shoes with cut silver buckles.

He glanced at his portmantles lying unstrapped, and thought, with the curious pang a broken resolve brings in the remembrance, that he should by now have been half-way to Milan.

"But to-morrow," he said to himself, "to-morrow—"

He reflected on that, that this was but an episode, that his real life lay far outside these scenes, and would be resumed, as he had left it, grave, calm, untouched.

As he considered this, a kind of exaltation of the spirit came over him; he felt immeasurably stronger, he even smiled at the recollection of the power the beautiful Bolognese had had to move him—he evoked her image and viewed it without fascination; he felt that he could have met her and turned away without a quickening of his pulses.

He knelt down on the warm stone floor and unlocked his private box; from among the papers and jewel cases within he took out an Anglican Prayer Book in an ivory cover with gilt clasps—a book too splendid for his beliefs, but it was older than the modern days of stern simplicity. A Moutray, who had fallen fighting for Protestantism in the Low Countries under General Mackay, had carried it in his pocket on the battlefield where he had met his death; the dry, yellowed front pages Avere sprinkled with faded bloodstains.

Francis bowed his head, remained on his knees, and turned over the pages with fanatical reverence.

He stopped at the Epistle to the Ephesians, used in the Church of England on the third Sunday in Lent, and often resorted to for comfort and strength by the young Calvinist.

He began to read the words aloud in a hushed, tense voice:

"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us ...But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not he once named amongst you, as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient; but rather giving of thanks ...Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them: for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as Children of Light ...and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."

The broken, eager sentences ceased. Francis was silent, shuddering as he had often shuddered before in face of the awful might and power of those words—sentences that held as much of menace and terror as of strength and consolation. Either by menace or by consolation they cooled the hot rebellious blood in him; he put the old book back among his valuables, turned the key on it, and rose outwardly composed and inwardly master of himself.

As he turned to close the windows on the final glimmer of the daylight, he was conscious of a great increase in the sweet, powerful perfume of wine or blossom that he had before noticed in the room. So strong was this wave of heavy scent that he instinctively turned.

His newly acquired Italian servant stood within the door in a charming attitude of deprecation; he held a cluster of pure white and perfect flowers.

"The gardenias," he said, and placed them delicately on Mr. Moutray's lace ruffles, "for the Signore to wear to-night."

Francis came to the bed and looked down at the blooms which emitted the overpowering and exciting odour. He had never worn flowers before, but he had seen the Italian cavaliers with posies tucked into the velvet arid lace of their cravats.

He picked up the flowers and gazed at them; his acute but stifled sense of beauty was stirred to great animation by the strength and whiteness, purity and delicacy of the strange blooms among the dark green leaves, and as he looked at them the fine edge of his spiritual exaltation wore away—he felt the blood stirring in his veins, rapidly, dangerously.

"Because of these things"—the warning darted through his brain; he stepped to the window and flung the gardenias out, but before the perfect courtesy of the valet's smile he was ashamed.