The Duchess of Trajetto

by Anne Manning

  CHAPTER XVII.

  ISCHIA.

  Giulia was recruiting her health, meantime, at Vittoria's charmingisland-home of Ischia,

  "Where nothing met the eye but sights of bliss."

  --where a graceful simplicity, indeed, reigned, but under the regulationof the purest taste,--where duties, softened into pleasures, filled upevery hour; and where leisure, never degenerating into laziness, wasalternately dedicated to poetry, music, and painting, to the enjoymentof the most exquisite beauties of nature, to the cultivation of themind, and to offices of charity and devotion. Among the poets andeminent men who here "invoked the muses and improved their vein," andwho helped to make this remote rock famous, were Musefilo, Filocalo,Giovio, Bernardo Tasso, and many others. Bernardo Tasso thus sang thepraises of this charmed islet--

  "Superbo scoglio, altero e bel ricetto Di tanti chiari eroi, d'imperadori, Onde raggi di gloria escono fuori, Ch' ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto, Se per vera virtute al ben perfetto Salir si puote ed agli eterni onori Queste piu d'altre degne alme e migliori V'andran che chiudi nel petroso petto. Il lume e in te dell' armi; in te s'asconde Casta belta, valore e cortesia, Quanta mai vide il tempo, o diede il cielo. Ti sian secondi i fati, e il vento e l'onde Rendanti onore, e l'aria tua natia Abbia sempre temprato il caldo e il gelo!"

  Nor did younger and gayer poets want younger and gayer beauties toinspire them than the two noble widows; for Vittoria's householdcomprised six or eight nobly-born girls who were being trained under hereye, and whom her conscientiousness prevented from turning over to thesole superintendence of the Mother of the maids.

  "You might take more interest than you do, Giulia," said she, "in theeducation of your damsels. It would do them good, and you, too."

  "Ah, nothing could be more tiresome to me," said Giulia. "I am mosthappy to leave them to Donna Caterina!"

  "I doubt, however," said Vittoria, "whether we have even the right tokeep fellow-creatures about us, of like affections and passions withourselves, without providing some legitimate outlet for them, orsupplying them with sufficient motives for their restraint."

  "My girls seldom go into passions," said Giulia; "and I should think itimpertinent to inquire into their affections."

  "Why now, you incorrigible Giulia, did not you tell me of your fits ofsuppressed laughter while you were overhearing (actuallyeaves-dropping) that love dialogue between Tebaldo and Isaura? and ofyour laughing at her to her face, afterwards, in the presence of theother girls?"

  "I gave her a pearl necklace," said the Duchess.

  "Not till she married, months afterwards."

  "Well, I own I let myself down on that occasion."

  "As to letting yourself down, it is your keeping yourself up that Icomplain of--"

  "O, what a beautiful butterfly!--"

  "My dear Giulia, _don't_ run after it and put yourself in a fever. Youare not quite a child now!"

  "No, but I was a child once; and when I was a child-Duchess of thirteen,I thought that if I did not keep my maids at a distance, they would notrespect me. And my mother's word had always been, 'Never associate,child, with servants.'"

  "Servants and slaves, that may apply to very well," said Vittoria, whohad not surmounted class-prejudices, "but your maids-of-honour arewell-born, and though for a time they occupy subordinate positions,eventually they will marry respectably, it is to be hoped."

  "And that hope is enough to enliven them, I suppose," said Giulia. "Mydear Duke said to me, very soon after our marriage: 'Pargoletta!'--youknow he loved to call me 'pargoletta,' or 'animetta,' or 'dolce almamia,'--he said, 'Pargoletta, don't have much to say to your maids; theyare light and frivolous, and will do you no good.' And I loved to obeyhim; and I love to obey him still, for he was a wise man."

  "They might do you no good, but you might do them great good now," saidVittoria.

  "O, my dear, that set have long married off, and had their portions--somany ducats, a bed, bedding, and ewer and basin."

  "The new set, then--"

  "Here's a strawberry, I declare," said Giulia, diving into the leaves onthe bank upon which they were sitting. "Do have it!"

  "No, thank you. The--"

  "I could no more preach and pray with my maids as you do, Vittoria, thanI could fly!"

  "Why not?"

  "I should die of shame."

  "Nonsense," said the Marchioness, laughing.

  "I really should. It would be so ridiculous."

  "Quite otherwise, I think, if you undertook it in the right spirit."

  "But I never could. It is not in me. They would all begin to laugh--"

  "They must be under very poor control, then," said Vittoria.

  "Besides, it would be so uncalled for--it would take their thoughts offtheir proper work."

  "What is their proper work?"

  "To do vast quantities of embroidery and fine needlework."

  "Well, I think _your_ proper work is to care for their souls."

  "That's Fra Silvano's office."

  "Does he fulfil it?"

  "Not very well, I'm afraid. He chatters and laughs with them too much."

  "I should like to see him chatter and laugh with _my_ maids," saidVittoria, kindling. "He should not do so twice."

  "Ah," said Giulia, after a pause--"I wish I were as good as you,Vittoria--"

  "My dear soul, I am not good."

  "You are a great deal better than I am. Such as I am, I am and evershall be."

  "Hush, we can none of us say that!"

  "At any rate, there is no good thing in me, to impart to others. And thegirls do very well as they are--they stick to their needles."

  "What do they think of the while?"

  "Of their needles, I suppose."

  "If they do, they are better than I am," said Vittoria, almost with agroan. "Oh, Giulia, don't believe it!"

  "Well, I suppose nonsense of some sort may pass through their heads,"said Giulia, rather uneasily. "How am I to keep it out?"

  "By putting something better in. Not merely by preaching and praying,but by supplying proper, innocent food for their imaginations andfancies. You know I read my girls pleasant tales and dialoguessometimes, and lend them books of poetry and history."

  "Well, your girls are certainly better conducted than mine," saidGiulia. "They giggle less."

  "A canister with very little in it always rattles," said Vittoria. "Ihate giggling."

  "So do I; and, do you know, my dear Vittoria, that is one reason why Ihave so little to say to my maids."

  "It is the very reason why you should say the more. You should fill thecanisters."

  "I will try then," said the ingenuous Giulia, "when I return to Fondi."

  She returned there very soon: and Vittoria Colonna went to Lucca; "in anunostentatious manner," says the old chronicler, "attended by only sixgentlewomen."

  Why she went to Lucca, except that it was just then rife with theReformed opinions, and ready to throw off the yoke of Rome, thechronicler sayeth not. From Lucca she proceeded by easy stages toFerrara, mounted on her black and white jennet, with housings of crimsonvelvet fringed with gold, and attended by six grooms on foot, in cloaksand jerkins of blue and yellow satin. She herself wore a robe ofbrocaded crimson velvet, with a girdle of beaten gold; and on her head atravelling-cap of crimson satin, well becoming her "trecce d'oro," andlarge, mild blue eyes.

  Arrived at Ferrara, she was delightedly welcomed by Duke Ercole andDuchess Renee. Here was a house divided against itself. The poorDuchess--highly intelligent and a little crooked--now in hertwenty-ninth year, had been harshly dealt with by her husband, only atwelvemonth back, for harbouring and comforting those arch-hereticsCalvin and Clement Marot; and was now kept very much in check by theterrors of the Church, though in heart as much a Reformer as ever.

  To grace "the divine Vittoria," whose poetical fame was known all overItaly, and whose eulogist, Bernardo Tasso, was secretary to the Duchessof Ferrara, Duke Ercole invited the most disting
uished literati ofVenice and Lombardy to meet her. Oh, what a feast of reason and flow ofsoul! What reciprocations of compliments and couplets! What ransackingof heathen mythologies for metaphors and allusions! And then, in theretirement of the Duchess's closet, poor Renee could, with a full heart,ask Vittoria how things were going at Naples, whether Fra Bernardinowere really as moving a preacher as was reported, and whether Juan diValdes were sound on the doctrine of justification.

  And perhaps they had a snatch of serious reading together, and Vittoriamight recite to her a few of her sacred sonnets, copies of which werecoveted even by cardinals; and if the Duke came in and constrained themto change the subject, there was the clever little Princess Anne toexhibit, who was being educated, for the sake of emulation, with OlympiaMorata. Certes, Vittoria was made much of! But the air of Ferrara didnot agree with her health, and she was soon obliged to move southwards.Among the dreams and schemes of the hour, which were never to berealised, was a projected visit to the Holy Land. She would so like tosee the holy places!

  "The wildest scheme!" young Del Vasto pronounced it, when a rumour of itreached him at Rome. He lost no time in hastening to his beloved friend,to dissuade her from what she had perhaps never seriously contemplated,and to induce her to be content with the Eternal City. And when shereached it, she was received with almost public honours--so proud wasItaly of its "divine Vittoria Colonna!"

  Here she found a circle of the most eminent men in Italy, hopefullyawaiting the issue of Cardinal Contarini's conciliatory mission to theGerman Reformers; and it was trusted that, by wise concessions on thepart of Rome, a fearful schism might be avoided. But when did Rome evermake wise concessions?

  It was at this time that the friendship commenced between Vittoria andMichael Angelo, which was equally honourable to both; and we have hisown word for it, that through her he was made a devout Christian. It wasthe crowning beauty of her life.

  Meanwhile Giulia was the prey of intense melancholy at Fondi. Itexpressed itself in joyless looks, in mournful tones, in neglecteddress, in small austerities, in rising at out-of-the-way hours to tellher rosary, &c.

  Her ladies united in declaring that she must be ill, and that the marshmiasma was answerable for it. So then Bar Hhasdai was sent for; and headvised change of air and _quantum sufficit_ of generous red wine wellspiced. She acquiesced in both prescriptions; and then indulged in alittle doctors' gossip, that most healing balm. They talked over theCardinal's death, and Bar Hhasdai said that, even if he had been soonersent for, he did not believe he could have saved him.

  "One cardinal the less, one saint the more," said Giulia.

  Bar Hhasdai looked sceptical. "Was he of the stuff that saints are madeof?" said he.

  "He was very generally liked," said Giulia.

  "And so long as thou doest good unto thyself, men will speak well ofthee," said the Jew, equivocally.

  So she returned to her old quarters at Naples, where she had thesatisfaction of hearing from Valdes, who immediately waited on her, thatOchino was again preaching with great acceptance. She had tried asceticmortifications, on a small scale, without any beneficial result; and shenow, with a heart aching for a better life, and sick of the world'spleasures, which, after all, she had never much indulged in, resolved toprove whether enduring comfort might not be derived from the cross ofChrist.