XXV
The evening before Monsieur d'Antin's return to Montefiano from Rome, Bianca Acorari had dined alone. The princess had been invisible most of the day. Although she appeared at breakfast, she had retired to her room later on in the afternoon, a victim to a violent nervous headache, the result, as Bianca was only too well aware, of the agitation she had been in ever since the scene on the previous day. The Abbé Roux had announced at breakfast that he should be away until late that evening, having, as he explained, to go to Orvieto to visit a friend who lived near that city. As Bianca sat alone at dinner, she felt grateful to the abbé for having had the tact to absent himself. She did not feel inclined for a tête-à-tête meal with anybody, and certainly not with the Abbé Roux.
To say the truth, her step-mother's evident distress had made Bianca almost regret that she had allowed herself to speak so plainly as she had done the day before. Resolute and strong-willed as she could be when she chose, her nature was both sensitive and warm-hearted; and although she would not have retracted one word that she had said, or retreated one inch from the attitude she had taken up, she felt sorry and disturbed in her mind at the pain she had evidently occasioned the princess. After all, it was not unnatural that her step-mother should consider it to be her duty to impede by every means in her power a marriage of which she disapproved. It was not unnatural, either, that she should disapprove. Bianca, whose sense of justice was unusually strong, would have scorned to be unjust to any individual simply because she happened not to be in agreement with that individual. She was quite aware, too, that her conduct had been certainly not in accordance with that which was considered fitting to a young girl in any position. She should, of course, have refused to allow Silvio to speak a word of love to her until he should first have gained the consent of her step-mother. No doubt she had been wrong – immodest, perhaps, as her step-mother had said – but all the same, she was glad she had not repulsed Silvio that day in the ilex grove. Glad, did she say? But that was an untruth. She had never thought of repulsing him, could not have done so, for she wanted love. She had wanted it for so long, and she had understood that Silvio had it to give her. And she wanted somebody whom she could love, not merely some one towards whom she was perpetually being told she should be dutiful. No, it was absurd to say she was glad she had listened to him, and had let him tell her his love in his own way. It was worse than absurd – it was a lie told to herself. Ever since that Christmas night when she had seen him in the church of the Sudario, she had understood that she loved, and that he loved her. And she had never thought of repulsing him. She had thought only of the moment when she should hear him tell her of his love; when she should feel his arms around her and his lips on hers; when she could show him that she, too, knew what love was.
From which reflections it was evident that Monsieur d'Antin had been right in his diagnosis of Bianca Acorari's temperament, and in coming to the conclusion that his sister and the Abbé Roux would be preparing for themselves a disillusion if they continued to regard her as little more than a child.
Bianca retired to her room early that night. It was certainly not cheerful to sit alone in the drawing-room after dinner, trying to read a book by the light of one or two old-fashioned moderator lamps, which only served to cast gloomy shadows into the corners of the vast apartment. The princess had caused a pianoforte to be sent from Rome; for the Érard which stood at one end of the drawing-room was reduced by age and damp to a compass of some two octaves of notes which, when played upon, produced sounds that were strange but scarcely musical; while the upper and lower octaves of the key-board had ceased to produce any sound whatever, save a spasmodic, metallic tapping as the hammer struck the broken wires. Bianca used to touch the instrument sometimes, and wonder whether it had belonged to her mother, and if her hands had pressed the yellow keys. She knew that her mother had passed the last year or two of her life at Montefiano, and that she herself had first seen the light there.
But to-night she was not in the humor for either reading or playing the piano. She felt weary, mentally and bodily; for, after the excitement of the discussion the previous day with her step-mother, reaction had set in. She was depressed, and, a thing very unusual to her, nervous. An almost intolerable sensation of loneliness haunted her. It seemed strange to think that a few hundred metres away, down in the paese, people were talking and laughing and living their lives. She was not living hers; life was going on all around her, but she had no part or share in it. Ah, if only she could hear something from Silvio! – hear of him, even – she would not feel quite so lonely. She would feel sure then, though they were separated, though probably they would be divided for months and years to come, that they were together in their thoughts; that he was faithful and true to her, as she was struggling with all her force to be faithful and true to the promise she had made him there, under the ilex-trees at the Villa Acorari.
Passing quietly through her step-mother's apartment, lest she should be perhaps already asleep, Bianca was about to enter her own room, when the princess called to her.
"Come here, figlia mia," she said, gently, "I am not asleep."
Bianca approached the bed and remained standing by it. Princess Montefiano took her hand and held it in hers for a moment.
"You think me very cruel, do you not, Bianca?" she said; "like the cruel step-mothers in the fairy-tales," she added, with a little attempt at a laugh. "Well, some day you will understand that if I am unkind, it is for your good. But there is something else I want to say to you. I do not intend to discuss the other matter – the Rossano matter. I shall never change my opinion on that point – never! And so long as you are under my authority, so long shall I absolutely forbid any question of a marriage between you and a son of Professor Rossano, and communication of any sort to pass between you. What I wish to say to you is this. Because I will not consent to your marriage with this young Rossano, you must not think that I wish to influence you or compel you to listen to my brother. That would not be my idea of what is my duty towards you as my husband's child, for whose happiness I am responsible, both before God and before the world. You must understand that you are free, Bianca, absolutely free to do as you choose as regards accepting or not the affection my brother offers you. It may be, perhaps, that when you are in a more reasonable frame of mind, and have realized that under no circumstances would you be allowed to marry out of your own sphere in life – and certainly not the son of an infidel professor, who, no doubt, shares his father's abominable principles and ideas – you will hesitate before throwing away my brother's love."
Bianca shook her head. "It is useless to think of that," she said, "and it is useless to tell me that under no circumstances shall I marry Silvio Rossano. Unless one of us dies, I shall marry him. I have nothing more to say than what I said yesterday, and nothing to unsay. You ask me if I think you unkind. No; I do not think that."
"Surely," exclaimed the princesse, almost wistfully – "surely you can understand that in all this miserable business I am only doing what my conscience tells me to be my duty towards you!"
Bianca withdrew her hand. "Yes," she said; "I quite understand. I have always understood." Then, wishing her step-mother good-night, she bent down and kissed her, and passed into her own room, gently closing both of the double set of doors which separated the two apartments.
She had not been in bed long before sleep came to her, for she was, in fact, more weary in body and mind than she had realized. For four or five hours she slept soundly enough, but after that her slumbers became disturbed by dreams. She dreamed that Silvio was near her, that she could see him but could not speak to him, and that he had some message for her, some letter which the Abbé Roux was trying to take from him. In her sleep she seemed to hear strange noises and her own name called softly at intervals. Suddenly she awoke with a start. A gleam of moonlight was shining through the window-curtains and half-closed persiennes. It made a broad track across the floor to the wall opposite her bed, and fell on the face of a picture hanging near the corner of the room – a portrait of that very Cardinal Acorari who had caused the Renaissance palace to be added to the Montefiano fortress, in order that he might have a villa in the Sabine Mountains in which to pass the hot summer months away from Rome. The moonlight glanced upon his scarlet robes and skull-cap and on his heavy countenance. Time had caused the flesh colors to fade, and the full mouth, with the sensual lips, looked unnaturally red against the waxy whiteness of the rest of the face.
Bianca lay and looked at the streak of moonlight on the floor. Presently her gaze followed the track until it rested on the picture. For some moments she looked at the portrait with a certain fascination. She had never seen it in the moonlight before; it looked ghostly. She had once seen a cardinal lying in state when she was a child, and the sight had frightened her. She was not at all frightened now, for she was no longer a child; but all the same, she could not take her eyes off the picture. She found herself wondering what relation she was to that old Cardinal Acorari – great-great-what? Granddaughter would not do, for cardinals, of course, never had children; certainly not cardinal-priests; and Cardinal Acorari had been bishop of Ostia and cardinal vicar of Rome.
Suddenly she sat up in her bed. Surely she had seen the face move? Yes; it had certainly moved; it was quite ten centimetres more to the right of the moonlight than it had been a moment ago. Now half the features were in shadow, and the cardinal's biretta was half red and half black. Sciocchezze! Of course, it was the moon that had moved, not the picture; or, rather, she supposed it was the earth that had moved, or the sun! Something had moved, at any rate, but not the cardinal. And smiling at her own stupidity, Bianca withdrew her gaze from the picture, and, turning on her side, tried to compose herself to sleep once more. But it soon became evident that sleep would not return to her. She felt restless, and the night, too, was hot. Rising from her bed, she threw a light wrap over her shoulders and went to one of the windows, the curtains of which she drew gently aside; and then, taking care not to make any noise that could be heard in the room beyond, she opened the green persiennes outside the window and leaned out. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the September night was oppressively warm. A silvery haze hung over the macchiabelow the terrace, and far away, under the encircling mountains, Bianca could see the wreaths of mist rising in the valley of the Tiber. The two flanking wings of the palace stood out cold and white in the moonlight, while the double avenue of lofty cypresses on each side of the great night of stone steps leading down from the terrace into the park looked black and sombre in the nearer foreground.
The splashing of a fountain in the centre of the avenue, and the occasional cry of some bird, alone broke the intense stillness. Bianca rested her arms on the ledge of the window, gazing out upon the scene below her. The moonlight fell full upon her and glanced upon the tawny gold of her hair. For some moments she remained immovable. Then, with a gesture of passionate abandonment, she flung her white arms out into the silver night. "Silvio!" she whispered; "Silvio, not one word? Ah, my beloved, if you knew how I want you, if you knew the loneliness! Ah, but I will be patient, I will be brave, for your sake and for my own – only —Dio!– " She turned suddenly with a little cry. Surely she had heard her own name again, spoken very softly from somewhere within the room behind her. She looked hastily round, but could see nobody. Only her own shadow fell across the floor in the moonlight.
"Eccellenza! Donna Bianca!"
Ah, this time she was not mistaken! It was her name she had heard whispered, and the voice came from the cardinal's portrait. Bianca started back. For a second or two she felt fear. If she could only see the person who had called her, she would not be frightened, she was certain of that. Gathering her wrap round her she came forward into the room.
"I am Bianca Acorari," she said, in a low, clear voice. "What do you want with me, and how have you ventured to come here? Speak, or I will call for help."
"Ah, per carità! do not call – do not be afraid."
"I am not afraid," interrupted Bianca Acorari, quietly. "Why should I be afraid? Besides, it – you are a woman, are you not?"
"Eccellenza– yes! It is I, Concetta Fontana, and I bring a message – a letter. Ah, but I have been waiting for an hour before I dared speak. I called you, but you were sleeping, and then, when I saw you at the window, I was frightened – "
The white face of Cardinal Acorari disappeared noiselessly into the wall, and Concetta's form occupied its place. She carried in her hand a small oil-lamp; and, balancing herself for an instant, she dropped lightly down the three or four feet from where the picture had hung, to the floor.
Bianca rushed towards her. "Concetta!" she exclaimed. Then she tottered a little, and, dropping into a chair, began to sob convulsively.
In a moment Concetta was by her side and had thrown her arms round her.
"For the love of God, eccellenza, do not cry!" she exclaimed. "Do not make a sound – the princess – she might hear. Yes, it is Concetta – Concetta who has brought you this – who will do anything for you," and she thrust Silvio's packet into Bianca's hand.
Bianca looked at it for a moment as if she scarcely understood her. Then she tore it open eagerly. A smaller packet fell from it to the floor, but Bianca let it lie there. Her eyes had caught sight of the letter in which it was enclosed, and she wanted that and nothing else. Hurriedly unfolding it, she darted to the window again and held the closely written sheets to the moonlight. "Ah, Silvio!" she exclaimed, "I knew, I knew!"
Concetta, practically, lighted a candle, and waited in silence while Bianca devoured the contents of her lover's letter. Every now and then she cast anxious glances towards the princess's apartment. Then, when Bianca had finished feverishly reading through the letter for the first time and was about to begin it again, she stooped, and picking up the packet from the floor, gave it to her.
Bianca undid the paper, and, opening the little box inside, took out the ring.
"Ah, look!" she said. "Look what he sends me – his mother's ring! Look how the diamonds sparkle in the moonlight, Concetta – and the sapphire – how blue the sapphire is! Blue, like – "
She stopped suddenly, and a hot wave of color mounted to her face. Replacing the ring in its case, she thrust it and the letter into her bosom.
Then she turned to Concetta quickly.
"How did you come here, and why should you do this thing for me?" she asked, almost fiercely. "Are you sent to lay a trap for me? Speak!"
Concetta Fontana flung herself upon her knees, and taking Bianca's hand, covered it with kisses. "No, no," she exclaimed. "I have come because my father sent me – my father and Don Agostino – because you are the padrona– not – not that other one – the foreigner. Eccellenza, you have no right to mistrust me. I swear to God that there is no deceit, no trap. Nobody knows of the secret passage – only my father and I. My father could not come here – in the dead of night – so I came."
"The secret passage!" repeated Bianca, wonderingly.
Concetta pointed to the hole in the wall where the cardinal's portrait had been. "It is there," she said, "and it runs the whole length of the piano nobile and down into the entrance-court. See!" Going to the aperture, she pressed a spring concealed in the groove, and slowly, noiselessly, the picture of Cardinal Acorari glided back into its original position.
"I can come and go when I please," said Concetta, with a smile, "so the principessina is no longer a prisoner who cannot communicate with the world outside. Oh, and there are those outside who mean to help her – Don Agostino, and my father, and others besides. We will not have our padrona shut up in the castle of Montefiano to please a foreign priest. Sicuro! very soon – in a few days perhaps – the principessina will understand that she is at Montefiano – among her own people."
Bianca scarcely heard Concetta Fontana's latter words.
"Who is Don Agostino?" she asked, suddenly. "Silvio – this letter – says that the packet will be brought or conveyed to me by Monsignor Lelli."
"Don Agostino – Lelli – it is all one," replied Concetta. "He is our parroco, eccellenza; and he is good, oh, he is good! If all priests were like Don Agostino —mah!"
Bianca took out her letter again. As yet she could hardly realize her happiness. A few minutes ago she had felt utterly alone, almost without hope, save the hope that her own courage and her trust in Silvio gave her. Now the world seemed different. She had got her message from that great world outside, which until just now had seemed so far away from her own – that world where life and love were waiting for her.
Suddenly she turned to Concetta and took both the girl's hands in hers. "Forgive me," she said, softly; "I was wrong to doubt you, but I think I have begun to suspect everybody lately. When one has once been deceived, it is not easy to trust again."
Concetta's eyes flashed. "Who has dared to deceive you, signorina?" she asked, hastily. "Not – " she pointed to the letter Bianca was still holding against her heart.
Bianca smiled. "No, Concetta; ah, no, not he! How could he deceive me? I was thinking of somebody else – somebody here at Montefiano. But it does not matter. I do not care at all now. Indeed, I do not think that I shall care about anything again. Ah, Concetta, some day you will know that I am grateful for what you have done to-night. I shall not forget. I shall ask you what I can do for you in return, when I am really Principessina di Montefiano."
Concetta looked at her quickly. "It will not be difficult to repay me," she said; "but I don't want repayment, eccellenza; it is not for repayment I mention it. But, some day, if you will remember that my father has been dismissed from your service because he would not consent to an injustice being done in your name to the people, that will be repayment enough."
Bianca started. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "I recollect. Your father has been dismissed from his post, has he not? Well, when I have power to recall him, he shall be recalled. It is enough for me to know that he has been dismissed by Monsieur l'Abbé Roux to suspect that he has been unjustly treated. But what do you mean by injustice to the people done in my name, Concetta? I do not understand."
Concetta hesitated. "You will understand very soon, perhaps," she replied, mysteriously. "But do not be alarmed, eccellenza, it is not you with whom the people are angry. They know you cannot help what is being done, although it may be done in your name. Basta! if you have no further orders for me, I will go. It is nearly morning, and I have been here too long. If the princess were to awake and think of coming into your room – "
"She never comes into my room after I have wished her good-night," said Bianca, "and you must not go yet, Concetta – at least, not before I have given you a letter which you will take back to Monsignor Lelli – Don Agostino – for me. You will do that, will you not?"
"Altro! But, eccellenza, do not be long writing your letter. If I were to be found here – well – " and Concetta shrugged her shoulders significantly.
Bianca suddenly looked round the room in despair. "Madonna mia!" she exclaimed, "I have nothing to write with – no ink or paper – only a little pencil."
"The pencil must serve for this time, signorina," said Concetta. "To-morrow you can bring some writing-materials here and hide them in the passage outside, for I will show you how to work the spring. Anything you place in the passage is as if Domeneddio had it in his own pocket. But for to-night write a few words on the blank half-sheet of that letter you have, and early to-morrow morning I will give it myself to Don Agostino."
Bianca looked at her doubtfully. She was loath to part with even a scrap of paper that had come from Silvio. But time pressed, and if she did not return an immediate reply to his missive, Silvio would think it had been intercepted. She sat down and wrote a few lines hurriedly, and, folding up her half-sheet of paper, confided it to Concetta's keeping.
"You will tell Don Agostino that I shall send another letter to-morrow by you," she said, "and you will thank him for all he is doing, Concetta, from me. And tell him also that I shall write to him myself, because – "
She hesitated for a moment, then, drawing herself up, she looked Concetta full in the face. "Because my future husband wishes me to do so," she concluded, quietly.
Concetta Fontana took her hand, and, raising it to her lips, kissed it. "I will go to Don Agostino at seven o'clock this morning, before he says his mass, and I will give him the letter. Ah, signorina, if the Signorino Rossano is Don Agostino's friend, it is proof enough that, speaking with respect, you have chosen your husband wisely. Sicuro! Don Agostino is a good man. There are many at Montefiano who distrust the priests; but there is nobody who does not trust Don Agostino. It is I, Concetta, who say it to you – and I know. But look, signorina, the dawn will soon be here. Let me go now – for who knows that her excellency might not awake. You will not be frightened if you see the picture move again? It will only be Concetta looking into the room to make sure that you are alone."
Bianca turned to her quickly. "Ah, Concetta," she exclaimed, "I am so happy – you do not know how happy! And I shall not forget what you have done for me – you will see that I shall not forget. Yes – go – go! I am not alone any longer now."
Concetta lifted up a chair and placed it under the picture. Then, standing upon it, she pressed the spring concealed behind the heavy, carved frame, and slowly, noiselessly, the portrait of Cardinal Acorari slid back into the wall. Another moment, and Concetta was standing in the aperture where the painted panel had been. "Sleep well now, signorina," she whispered to Bianca, "and do not be afraid. There are those watching that no harm shall come to you at Montefiano."
She drew back into the passage as she spoke, pressing the corresponding spring on the other side of the wall as she did so; and once more the cardinal looked down on Bianca from the spot where Concetta had been standing but an instant before.
Bianca gazed at the picture for a few moments, and listened for any faint echo of Concetta's footsteps. Not the slightest sound was audible from the passage. Only the twittering of waking birds came through the open window; and Bianca, turning away, went again to it and leaned out. A faint breeze was stirring the trees in the macchia below the terrace, and the drooping tops of the cypresses were swaying softly. The moon was sinking behind the lofty ridges of Soracte, and away in the east the violet sky of night was already streaked with the first pale messengers heralding the coming of the dawn.
And Bianca leaned from the window and watched till the pearly whiteness in the eastern sky deepened into rose red; till the wreaths of mist floating away from the valley of the Tiber rose, and, clinging to the mountain-sides, glided slowly upward till they caught the first golden rays of the yet hidden sun.
From the woodland below came the distant notes of a reed-pipe, and then a boy's voice singing one of the strange minor cadences learned, probably, centuries ago of slaves from the East, and sung still by the peasants and shepherds of the Latin province. In the present instance, Bianca knew that the lad was no shepherd – for the sheep had not yet been brought down from the higher pastures – but that he was engaged in the less poetical occupation of tending pigs.
As she watched, a wave of golden light seemed to spread over the face of the landscape below her, and the sun rose. And Bianca Acorari flung out her arms once more; this time not in doubt and almost in despair, but in a passion of joy, thankfulness, and love.