Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

For a few moments after she had opened her eyes the young girl had not quite understood where she was, for she had lain down exhausted, and sleep had come to her as her head touched the pillow. Now, in the broad daylight, when she had plunged her face into cold water, she realised everything, and the colour rose slowly to her throat and cheeks. She went to the window and stood there, turned away from Pina and looked out. Below her lay the chief public square of the city; on the left rose the huge castle, the most gloomy and forbidding she had ever seen. She had never heard of Nicholas Third of Este nor of his wife Parisina, fair, evil, and ill-fated, nor of handsome Ugo, who died an hour before her for his sins and hers, in the dark chamber at the foot of the Lion Tower; but if Pina had known the story and had told it to her in all its horror, Ortensia would have felt that it must be true, and that only such tragedies as that could happen within such walls. They were so stern, so square, so dark; the towers rose so grimly out of the black waters of the moat! It was of bad augury to look at them, she thought, and she drew back from the window and sat down where she could see only the sky.

  Pina was making such preparations for her mistress’s toilet as were possible. Being a prudent woman she had brought in her pocket three objects of the highest usefulness, a piece of white Spanish soap, a comb, and a shabby little old rolling work-case of yellow leather, in which there were needles and thread and pins. The figure of a wild animal, which might have been meant for a bear, was embroidered in black thread on the outer flap of the case. Pina had used it ever since Ortensia could remember, and seemed to value it as much as any of her few possessions. It was a very useful little thing, and she kept it always well filled with sewing materials.

  As the young girl did not move and showed no inclination to dress herself, Pina came behind her and began to let down and comb her hair, which she had not even taken down on the previous night, being far too much exhausted to think of such a thing. She submitted her head willingly to the skilled hands of her nurse.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked after a time, and she felt that she was blushing again.

  ‘They slept on the floor in the passage,’ Pina answered. ‘Perhaps they are asleep still. You shut your eyes as soon as you lay down, but I opened the door again and looked out before I went to bed. Signor Alessandro asked me if we needed anything, and then said good-night.’

  ‘Will you go and see if they are still there, please?’

  Pina crossed the room, drew back the bolt, and put out her head, looking up and down the passage. There was no one to be seen, and she shut the door again without bolting it. She came back and again began to comb out the girl’s hair.

  ‘They are not there,’ she said. ‘Probably Signor Alessandro is ordering the horses. He will come in a few minutes and tell us at what time we are to start.’

  A short silence followed.

  ‘Have you ever been here before?’ Ortensia asked presently.

  ‘Yes,’ Pina answered, ‘I have been here before. I do not like Ferrara.’

  ‘Why not? Have you any particular reason for not liking it?’

  ‘It was here that my thumb was hurt,’ said the nurse. ‘That is a fair reason, is it not?’ She laughed rather harshly. ‘To hate a place because one has had an accident in it! The men would say that is just like a woman!’

  ‘I hope I may never come here again, either,’ Ortensia answered. ‘How did you hurt your thumb?’

  ‘That is a long story, my lady. But why do you also dislike the place already? You have only looked out of the window once.’

  ‘I saw the castle, and I thought it was of bad augury, for it looks like a great prison.’

  ‘There are prisons in it without any light, very deep down,’ said Pina quietly. ‘The Pope’s Legate lives in the upper part. The Legate is the Papal Governor, you know, my lady.’

  ‘I did not know. But the ugly castle is not the real reason why I do not like Ferrara. I could not tell any one else, but I think I can tell you, Pina.’

  She turned her head half round under the nurse’s hands, looked up sideways, and then hesitated. It was not easy to explain.

  ‘What is it, my lady?’ asked the serving-woman. ‘You can tell old Pina anything.’

  ‘It is all so different from what I thought it would be,’ Ortensia said in a rather low voice, and again a blush rose in her cheek.

  ‘I think I understand,’ Pina said, steadily combing out the heavy auburn hair.

  ‘You see,’ Ortensia explained, ‘we all four got into the gondola together, and there was that long row to the land, and that dreadful night in the cart on the road to Padua — and then the half-hour at daybreak, while he was getting the carriage, and then the journey here — and last night — and now — —’

  She did not finish the sentence, hoping that Pina would really understand.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman said quietly. ‘You have not been alone together for a moment since we left Venice, and that is not what you expected.’

  ‘No,’ Ortensia answered in the hurt tone of a disappointed child, ‘I thought it was going to be quite different! And now we shall start again and drive all day and half the night, and then it will be just the same, I suppose!’

  ‘Once in Florence, or even in Bologna, there will be no more hurry,’ said Pina in a consoling tone. ‘Besides, my lady, you can be properly married then.’

  ‘Of course, of course! We shall be married as soon as we can, but all the same — —’

  ‘All the same, it would be pleasant to spend half-an-hour together without old Pina always listening and looking on!’

  The nurse smiled and shook her head, but Ortensia could not see her, and did not think her tone was very encouraging; it sounded as if ‘old Pina’ thought it was going to be her duty to play chaperon two or three days longer, which was not at all what Ortensia wished.

  ‘If he had even shown that he was a little disappointed, too — —’ the girl began, and then she stopped.

  ‘That would not have been good manners, my lady,’ Pina said primly. ‘When a gentleman has carried off a young lady, with her own consent, the least he can do is to look pleased, I am sure!’

  ‘I thought you would understand better,’ Ortensia answered in a tone of disappointment.

  Some one knocked at the door, not loudly but sharply, and as if in a hurry; Pina went at once to see who it was, and found Stradella himself outside.

  ‘May I come in?’ he asked quickly.

  Beyond Pina, as he looked in, he saw Ortensia in her brown cloak, with her hair down and all combed out over her shoulders, and without waiting for an answer he pushed past the nurse and went to her. Instinctively she drew the cloak more closely round her, but she looked up with a bright smile, which vanished when she saw his expression in the strong light. He spoke anxiously, without even a word of greeting.

  ‘There are no horses to be had,’ he said. ‘I have done my best, but the Pope’s Nuncio is passing through and has engaged everything there was. There is not even a public coach to Bologna till to-morrow morning. I am more distressed than I can tell you! I have sent my man out to see if he can find anything, and he will if there is a beast to be had. If not, we shall have to wait here.’

  While he was speaking, the door had closed softly and Pina was gone. Ortensia saw her go out and put out one hand timidly between the folds of the cloak, for her arm was bare, and she tried to cover it. At the same time the glorious colour rose in her face, the third time since she had opened her eyes that morning.

  ‘I am glad,’ she said simply, as soon as her hand was in his.

  He glanced behind him and saw that Pina had disappeared. Then without a word he drew the lovely girl up to him, and for a while they stood clasped in each other’s arms; and she forgot that hers were bare, and he scarcely knew it; and if their faces drew back one from the other for a few seconds, it was that their eyes might meet in one another’s depths; and the broad morning sun shone full upon the two through the open window, making the girl’s auburn
hair blaze like dark red gold, and a white radiance glowed in her pure forehead and snowy arms.

  Stradella shivered a little, even in the sunshine, as he let her go, and she sank upon her chair, finding his hand again and holding it fast as if she feared lest he should leave her. It had been a strange wooing, in which song had played a greater part than words; and as for anything else, he had kissed her twice on that night when he had climbed into the loggia, and not again till now. Had he loved her less, he would have laughed at himself for the innocence of such a love-making; but it was all unlike anything that had ever happened to him before, and, moreover, he had no time for such reflections at the present moment, since every hour of delay might mean the nearer approach of danger, not to him only, but to Ortensia herself.

  ‘We are not far enough from Venice,’ he said, when he spoke at last. ‘I would give the world to have you safe in Florence!’

  ‘My uncle will not even try to catch us,’ Ortensia said calmly. ‘You do not know him. When he finds out that we are gone together he will fear a scandal, and he fears ridicule still more. He will tell his friends that he has sent me to the country, or to a convent, and by and by he will tell them that I am dead. He dreads nothing in the world so much as being laughed at!’

  She was so sure that she laughed herself as she thought of him, and almost wished that he might hear her, though he was certainly the very last person she wished to see just then. But Stradella thought otherwise.

  ‘No one would laugh at him if he had you assassinated,’ he said.

  ‘I am not afraid of that!’ Ortensia smiled at the mere idea of such a thing. ‘Why are you standing? Come, bring that chair and sit down beside me, for we are alone at last!’

  He was well used to women’s ways, but the ways of grown women of the world are not those of innocent maidens of seventeen; her perfect simplicity and fearlessness were quite new to him, and had a wonderful charm of their own. He drew a chair to the window and sat down close to her, and afterwards he was glad that he had done as she wished.

  It was all very strange, he thought even then. As yet, a love-affair had mostly meant for him a round of more or less dangerous adventures by night, such as climbing of balconies, unlocking of forbidden doors with stolen keys, imprisonment in dark closets and wardrobes, and sometimes flight in break-neck haste. That had usually been the material side, whereas now, reckoning up his risks, he had only climbed once to a loggia at night, and once he had been taken for a thief and chased, and that was all, excepting the actual escape from Venice, which had been without danger until now. On the other hand, there had stood to love’s credit, as against those insignificant perils, only two kisses and no more, exchanged when he had been so drenched with rain that it had been quite out of the question to put a dripping arm round his lady’s waist.

  And now, for the first time in his life, he was suddenly alone with an innocent girl of seventeen who loved him, and whom he loved even to the point of having carried her off out of her house; he was alone with her, in her own room, when she had but just risen from sleep, and she was sitting beside him in the early sunshine, that wove a blaze of glory round her young beauty, and her soft white hand held his; and he was not satisfied as she was, but wished it were night instead of day, and wished the sun were the moon, and that there were sweet silence without instead of the thousand cries and echoes of a waking Italian city. For all he had ever known of joy on earth, or ever hoped for, he would not have wished that Ortensia’s face could change into any that had once been dear to him under the summer moonlight of the south; yet he felt strangely constrained and awkward, like a schoolboy in love, not knowing what to do or say in the overwhelming daylight.

  ‘You are not glad, as I am,’ Ortensia said after the long silence.

  At the sound of her voice he found himself again, and he lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips.

  ‘I am afraid for you,’ he answered. ‘When a man has taken the most precious thing in the whole world, and carries it with him through an enemy’s country, he may well be afraid lest some harm come to it on the way.’

  ‘But this is not the enemy’s country!’ laughed Ortensia, too happy to be serious. ‘Are we not a hundred miles from Venice and my uncle?’

  ‘They say the Republic has long arms, love, and the Senator can count on every one of the Ten to help him. The law cannot touch us merely for having run away together, it is true, but what if he invents a crime? What if he swears that we have robbed him? The Pope’s Government will not harbour thieves nor shelter criminals against the justice of Venice! We should be arrested and given up, that is all, and then sent back! This is what I fear much more than that he should have us tracked and murdered by assassins, as many Venetians would do in this civilised age!’

  ‘But we have taken nothing,’ Ortensia objected, quite unable to be afraid of anything while her hand was in his. ‘How can he accuse us of robbing him? Pina and I have a comb and piece of soap between us! As for money, she may have a little small change, for all I know, but I have nothing.’

  ‘I have a good deal,’ Stradella answered; ‘quite enough to justify such an accusation as that. But, after all, nothing can hinder such a thing, if it is going to be. I dare say you are right — it is my anxiety for you that makes me think of everything that might happen.’

  ‘Nothing will happen,’ Ortensia said softly, ‘nothing will happen to part us!’

  Still holding his hand, she gazed into his eyes with an expression of ecstatic happiness, and she could not have found another word, even if she had needed speech; then suddenly her bare arm circled his neck like a flash of white light, for he was very close to her, and she took him unawares and kissed him first.

  She laid her head upon his breast a moment later, and he pressed her to him and buried his face in her sweet auburn hair. His heart overflowed in many soft and loving words.

  The door opened while he was speaking, and both started and sat upright, expecting to see Pina, and ashamed to be surprised even by her. Then Ortensia uttered a sharp cry and Stradella sprang to his feet.

  Two big men in rusty black and long boots had entered the room, and were advancing. They were broad-shouldered men, of a determined bearing, with sinister faces, and both wore swords and kept their slouch hats on their heads. Stradella was unarmed, and could only stand before Ortensia, awaiting their onset, for he had not a doubt but that they were Bravi sent by Pignaver to murder him. To his surprise they stopped before him, and one of them spoke.

  ‘You had better come quietly with us,’ the man said.

  Stradella understood at once that the two intruders were sbirri, come to arrest him, and he was sure that Pignaver had pursued precisely the course he had explained to Ortensia, and that he was going to be accused of robbery.

  ‘I am a Sicilian and a Spanish subject,’ he said. ‘By what right do you dare to arrest me?’

  ‘We know very well that you are a Sicilian, Master Bartolo,’ answered the man. ‘And as for the rest, it is known to you, so come with us and make no trouble, or it will be the worse for you.’

  ‘My name is not Bartolo!’ cried the musician indignantly. ‘I am Alessandro Stradella, the singer.’

  ‘Any one can say that,’ replied the man. ‘Come along! No nonsense, now!’

  ‘I tell you, I am Stradella — —’

  But the man glanced at his companion, and the two had him by his arms in an instant, though he struggled desperately. They were very strong fellows, and between them could have thrown a horse, and though Stradella was supple and quick, he was powerless between them.

  During the short exchange of words Ortensia had leaned back against the window-sill in frightened surprise, but when she saw her lover suddenly pinioned and dragged towards the door, she flew at the sbirri like a tigress, and buried her fingers in the throat of the nearest, springing upon him from behind. The fellow shook her off as a bull-terrier would a rat, and, while keeping his hold on the prisoner with one hand, he tripped her
roughly with his foot and the other, by a common professional trick, throwing her heavily upon the brick floor. Before she could rise, the men had got Stradella outside, and as she struggled to her feet she heard the key turned, and knew that she was locked in. In wild despair she beat upon the solid panels with her small fists, but no one answered her. Stradella’s man was scouring the town for horses, and Pina was not within hearing.

  Meanwhile the singer had submitted, as soon as he realised that he had no chance of escape, and that, unless the men were acting a part, he had been taken for a man called Bartolo, and would be able to explain the mistake as soon as he was brought before a responsible officer or magistrate. Indeed, when this view presented itself to him, he was only anxious to facilitate the course of events as much as possible, and spoke civilly to his captors, while walking quietly downstairs between them; but they did not let go of his arms for that reason.

  Below, in the arched entrance, the innkeeper was waiting, in conversation with three other sbirri, dressed and armed much in the same manner as the two who had made the arrest.

  ‘It is a mistake,’ Stradella said to the host. ‘I am taken for another man, and as soon as I have explained who I am, I shall return. I shall be obliged if you will attend to the wants of the lady and her serving-woman.’

  ‘Guests who quit the house without paying their score generally leave their luggage as security,’ answered the host with an insulting sneer, and pointing towards the entrance.

  There, to his surprise, Stradella saw two sturdy porters, laden with his valises, his cloak, and his lute, and evidently waiting to accompany him.

  ‘What are you doing, you scoundrels?’ he cried. ‘Put down my things!’

  But they only grinned and began to move on, and as he was hurried out of the door into the square, they jogged across the square at a trot with their burdens. A few moments later he followed them across the drawbridge of the castle and in under the great gate where a papal soldier, armed with halberd and broadsword, was pacing up and down on guard.