CHAPTER IX
"Passa la Bella Donna e par che dorma"--Tasso
"What's to be done now? I absolutely must find her," said Ludovico,looking, as he felt, exceedingly puzzled and annoyed.
"Well, yes. Considering the nature of the information she gave you thismorning, and bearing in mind that her existence in the flesh promises tobe the means of leaving you without the price of a crust of bread in theworld, and the further fact she was last seen starting on a tete-a-teteexpedition with you at six o'clock in the morning, I admit that it isdesirable that you should find her," said the lawyer, with somewhat grimpleasantry.
"For heaven's sake, Signor Giovacchino, don't talk in that sort of way,even in jest," replied the young man, looking round at the lawyer withan uneasy eye. "After all, nothing can have happened to her, you know,worse than losing herself in the Pineta."
"Pooh! happen to her. What should happen to her? Either you did not goback to the place where you left her; or, likely enough, after strollinga little away from it, and not finding you, she sat down, and two toone, fell asleep again. I would wager that she is, at this moment, fastasleep under the shadow of a pine-tree, making up for last night."
"But what had I better do? If she is still either sleeping or waking inthe forest, I must find her."
"Let us just step as far as the gate, and make some inquiry there. Ifshe returned to the city she must have come to the Porta Nuova. And shecould hardly have entered the town without drawing the attention of themen at the gate. Just let us make inquiry there in the first place."
So they went together to the Porta Nuova, and nothing more was saidbetween them during the short walk. But it seemed as if the manifestuneasiness of Ludovico had infected his companion. Yet it was evidentthat thoughts of a different nature were busy in their minds. TheMarchese Ludovico pressed on faster than the old lawyer could keep upwith him, and was very unmistakably anxious about the object of hisquest, and the tidings which he should be able to hear at the gate.
Signor Fortini had apparently got some other and newly-conceived thoughtin his mind. He looked two or three times shrewdly and furtively intothe face of the young Marchese; and closely compressed his thin lipstogether, and drew into a knot the shaggy eye-brows over his clear andthoughtful eyes. Some notion had been suggested to his mind which veryplainly he did not like.
At the gate nothing had been seen of the object of their search. Theoctroi officers perfectly well remembered seeing the Marchese Ludovico,who was well known to them by sight, drive through the gate very earlythat morning in a bagarino with a lady. One man had recognised the ladyas the prima donna at the opera. And they were very sure that she hadnot returned to the city since, at least by that gate.
But one of the officers volunteered the information that another younglady had that morning passed out of the city on foot a little before thetime at which the bagarino had passed with the Marchese and the primadonna. And the men, after some consultation together, were sure thatneither had that young lady returned by the gate they guarded.
Ludovico looked at the lawyer, and the lawyer looked at Ludovico; butneither of them could suggest anything in explanation of so strange acircumstance.
"I saw nothing of any such person either in the Pineta or on the road,"said Ludovico. "Who could it have been?"
The old lawyer only shrugged his shoulders in reply
"There is a young lady," resumed Ludovico, after some minutes ofthought, "a friend of mine--a young artist engaged in making copies fromthe mosaics in our churches. I know that it was her purpose shortly tobegin some work of this kind at St. Apollinare in Classe. It may be thatshe had selected this morning for the purpose of going out to look ather task,--though I almost think that I should have been informed of herintention."
"The plot seems to thicken with a vengeance," said the lawyer, with animpatient shrug, and a slight sneer of ill-humour, provoked by themultiplicity of his young client's lady friends. "I daresay," he added,"the young ladies are not playing hide-and-seek in the Pineta all bythemselves."
"But what had I better do?" said the young Marchese, looking withincreased anxiety into the lawyer's face; "the fact is--you see, SignorGiovacchino, this new idea, this possibility that Paolina--that is theyoung artist's name--may be--may have been in the forest--in short, Ifeel more uneasy than before till I can learn what has become of both ofthem."
"Do you mean," said the lawyer, with a sneer in his voice, but at thesame time looking into his companion's face with a shrewd expression ofinvestigation in his eye,--"do you mean that the two ladies may possiblyhave fallen in with each other, and may in such case not improbably havefallen out with each other? You know best, Signor Marchese, thelikelihood of any trouble arising out of such a meeting."
"For God's sake don't speak in such a tone, Signor Giovacchino. I tellyou I am seriously uneasy. Should they have met under suchcircumstances--God only knows--What would you advise me to do, SignorGiovacchino?" said the Marchese, looking into the lawyer's face withincreasing and now evidently painful anxiety.
"It is ill giving advice without knowing all the circumstances of acase, Signor Marchese," returned Fortini, somewhat drily, looking hardat the young man as he spoke, and putting a meaning emphasis on the word"all."
"You do know all the circumstances as far as I know them myself. Thething happened exactly as I told you," replied Ludovico.
"You left her sleeping on a bank in the forest, and have never seen hersince?" said the lawyer, thoughtfully.
"Exactly so! I returned to the spot where I had left her--at least asfar as I could tell it was the same spot--and she was no longer there,"replied Ludovico.
"But you were not sure that you did return to the same spot? You couldnot recognise it again with certainty?"
"So it seemed to me when I was there. I think it must have been the sameplace. But when I did not find her, I could not feel sure of it. Everyspot in the Pineta is so like all other spots. One pine-tree is justlike another; and the grassy openings, and the little thickets ofunderwood, are all the same over and over again. I felt that I could notbe sure that the place was the same."
"Was there no fallen tree, no track of road, no specialty of weed orflower, that the spot might be identified by?"
"None I think--none that I am aware of or can remember. There was alittle rising of the ground,--a sort of bank, and the grass wassprinkled all over with wild flowers. There were violets close at hand,I know, because I remember the scent of them! But when I came to try, itseem'd to me that I found all these things in a dozen other places."
"Nevertheless, you know at what point you entered the Pineta; it cannotbe very difficult to have the whole wood, within such a distance as itis at all likely that she should have strayed to, thoroughly searched.But the best men for the purpose would be some of the foresters in theemploy of the farmers of the forest. I dare say that we might find--whatis that coming along the road yonder?" said the lawyer interruptinghimself.
The two gentlemen had been standing during the above short conversationjust on the outside of the gate, and looking down the stretch of longstraight road towards St. Apollinare and the pine forest.
"It is a knot of men coming along the road. They are likely enough someof the very fellows we want. In that case we might get them to go backwith us without loss of time."
"With us?" said the lawyer, who had not bargained when he left his home,for any such expedition. "Well, I don't mind helping you, SignorMarchese, in your search," he added, after a moment's consideration;"but I am not going to walk to the Pineta this afternoon; and I shouldthink you must have had enough of it for to-day. But I will tell youwhat I can do. We will send one of these fellows to my house to order myservant to come here with my calessino as quick as he can; and if thesemen are the people we want--What are they doing? They are carryingsomething! Why surely--Signor Marchese!" said the old lawyer, lookinginto his companion's face, while a strange expression of understanding,mixed with a blank look of dismay and alarm
, stole over his ownfeatures.
"What is it?--What have they got?--Why, heavens and earth! it is--SignorFortini, is it not a dead body they are carrying? My God!"
The young man griped his companion's arm hard, as he spoke, and theaction enabled the lawyer to remark that he was shaking all over.
In another minute the men whom they had seen coming along the road wereclose to the gate. They were six in number; and they werebearing--somewhat, between them. They advanced beneath the coveredgateway, and there, as it is necessary to do in the case of everythingbrought into the town, they set their burthen down on the flag-stones,at the feet of the officers of the gate, and of the Marchese and thelawyer.
Their burthen was a door lifted from its hinges, and supported by threeslender stakes drawn green from a hedgerow. And on the door there lay,covered with a sheet, what was evidently a dead body.
Ludovico, with his eyes starting from his head, and horror in everyfeature of his face, still clutching one hand of the old lawyer in his,stretched forward with one advanced stride towards the extemporizedbier, and with his other hand lifted the sheet.
A shriek of horror burst from him. "Ah! Paolina mia!" he cried aloud;and then with a deep groan, as of one in physical pain, he fell intoSignor Fortini's arms, and sunk in an insensible state of sick faintnesson the flag-stone pavement beneath the old gateway.
BOOK II
Four Months before that Ash Wednesday Morning
A Siren Page 9