‘It is impossible to be more courteous, and I wish I could express my gratitude as well as you have worded your most kind invitation.’
The musician bowed rather formally from his chair as he spoke, but Don Alberto was not pleased.
‘Come, come, my dear Stradella,’ he said familiarly, ‘one would take us for a couple of courtiers making compliments at each other. We used to be good friends and comrades a year ago. Have you forgotten that carnival season, and how we supped together on ten consecutive nights in ten different eating-houses, with those two charming ladies from Genoa? Ah, my dear fellow, how you have changed! But you were not married then!’
‘And never thought I should be! But I am not as much changed as you think, and I dare say you will soon come to find it out. You spoke of some urgent business that brings you here — —’
‘Yes. It is an important affair for you. His Holiness wishes you to compose a high mass for Saint Peter’s Day, for the united choirs of the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter’s.’
‘But the feast is on the twenty-ninth of this month!’ cried Stradella in surprise. ‘The time is much too short! Less than three weeks for composing such a work! I cannot possibly undertake to turn out anything worthy in that time!’
‘I give you the message as my uncle the Cardinal gave it to me,’ Don Alberto answered with assurance, though he had invented the commission on the spur of the moment, quite sure that he could easily make it a genuine order, though it would never be executed if his own plans for carrying off Ortensia on Saint John’s Eve succeeded.
‘May I have a day in which to consider my answer?’ asked the musician.
‘If you like. But you will only lose twenty-four hours, since you will have to do what the Pope asks! A commission from the Sovereign is a command, you know. Besides, you must have a great many scraps of compositions and odds and ends of masses among your papers, a part of a Credo here, an Agnus Dei there — things you can string together and finish in a few days. The only part that must be new will be the Offertory for the day, unless you happen to have that too.’
‘But the whole can never be harmonious if I do it in that way — —’
‘What has that to do with it, my dear friend?’ asked Don Alberto. ‘What has conscience to do with art, pray? If you do the work the Pope will be pleased, and you will be several hundred crowns the richer; but if you refuse to do it, His Holiness will be angry with you and the Cardinal, and the Cardinal will make you and me pay for the reproof he will receive! As for the music, nothing you write can be bad, because you have real genius, and the worst that any one may say will be that your mass for Saint Peter’s Day is not your very best work. Therefore, in my opinion, you have no choice, and it is quite useless for you to take a whole day to consider the matter.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ Stradella answered.
He was not suspicious enough to guess that it was all an invention of Don Alberto’s, and the latter had a very persuasive way with him.
‘And now that it is all settled,’ Altieri said pleasantly, ‘I will take my leave. For during the next three weeks your own time will be more valuable than my company! My duty and homage to the Lady Ortensia, and good-bye; and if you will change your mind and stay here, I shall be much more in your debt than you in mine.’
‘Thank you,’ answered Stradella, rising to show him out.
When Ortensia had hurriedly left the room her intention had been to prevent any immediate trouble, but not to hide what had happened from her husband for more than a day or two. She was even more angry with Pina than with Don Alberto himself, for she could not but believe that the nurse had taken a bribe to admit him, and had then acted as if her mistress were in love with him, or at least willing to receive him alone in a toilet that could only imply great intimacy. The woman’s sudden appearance and her face at the door recalled too well how she had come back suddenly, on the day of the last lesson in Venice, to warn the pair that Pignaver was near, and Ortensia could not bear to think that she could ever have been caught with young Altieri in such a situation as to make the warning positively necessary for her own safety. Indeed, she was so much ashamed of it now that she blushed scarlet, though she was alone, and wondered how she could possibly tell Stradella what had happened.
He found her sitting before her mirror near the window, and from her chair she could see the reflection of the door through which she had entered. When the handle turned she put up her hands and pretended to be arranging her hair, and in the mirror she saw her husband’s face and understood that he was not angry, though he was by no means pleased. He came behind her, kissed her hair and then her forehead, as she bent her head backwards to look up into his face.
‘Don Alberto has been here,’ he said.
‘Yes?’ The interrogation in her tone might mean anything, and denied nothing.
‘He came to tell me that the Pope wishes me to write a solemn mass for the feast of Saint Peter, on the twenty-ninth, and of course I was obliged to agree to do it. But Pina should not have let him in. Do you think she would take money? After what he told you about her I cannot help trusting her less.’
‘Do you believe that what he told me is true?’
‘It agrees well enough with what she said when she came to see me in Venice,’ Stradella answered. ‘Do you remember? Or did I never tell you? She made it a condition of our flight that we should take her with us, because, if she were left behind, your uncle would have her tortured, and she said she could bear anything but that. She said it in a way that made me sure she had already suffered the question, as Don Alberto has now told you is really the case.’
‘It all agrees very well together,’ Ortensia announced, shaking her head. ‘Poor Pina! Perhaps Don Alberto threatened her, for I suppose he has power to do anything he pleases here in Rome.’
‘I will go and ask her,’ Stradella said. ‘That is the simplest way.’
‘No! Please — —’ Ortensia showed such signs of distress that her husband was surprised.
‘Why not? Do you think it would be unfair, or would hurt her feelings? Then call her here, and ask her yourself before me. She will probably confess the truth.’
‘She would be more likely to conceal it, since you have not the power to use threats!’
‘Possibly, but I doubt it. The woman is a coward, and if you speak sharply she will be frightened. I do not like to think that when I am out of the house and my man is out too, anybody may get in. You are not safe in such conditions. Any ruffian who knew her story could force his way to you! No, no, love — we must speak to her at once!’
He was already going towards the door, but Ortensia rose quickly and overtook him before he could go out, catching him by the hand and holding him back.
‘You must hear me first,’ she cried in great anxiety, leading him to a seat beside her.
He had followed her without resistance, too much surprised to object. If any reason for her action suggested itself it was that she wished to spare Pina’s feelings, probably out of affection for the nurse. But Ortensia took one of his hands and pressed it against her eyes as she began to speak, for she thought she had done something very wicked in concealing from him that she had really seen Don Alberto.
‘I do not know why Pina let him in,’ she said in a low voice, as if making a confession, ‘but he found me there, in the next room, and he had come on purpose to see me, and not you.’
She went on and told Stradella everything she could remember, which, indeed, was most of the conversation, including Don Alberto’s jesting pretence that he had been acting.
‘I did not want to make trouble,’ Ortensia concluded tearfully. ‘I meant to tell you to-morrow — are you very angry? You can call Pina now, if you like — —’
Stradella had risen and was pacing the room, evidently in no very gentle temper, though he was far too just to blame his wife for what had happened. After a few moments Ortensia rose and went to him, and as he stopped she laid her hands upon h
is shoulders, looking up into his eyes.
‘You are angry with me,’ she said very sorrowfully. ‘I did the best I could. He would not go away.’
Instantly he took her in his arms, lifted her clear of the floor, and kissed her passionately, again and again; and at the very first touch of his lips she understood, though she could almost feel his anger against Altieri throbbing in the hands that held her.
‘I have borne enough from that man,’ he said, letting her stand on her feet again, and he slipped his right arm round her waist, and made her walk up and down with him. ‘He will take no answer from you, he forces himself upon you when you are alone, he thinks that because he is the Pope’s nephew no one dares to face him and say him nay!’
He was very angry, and at each phrase his hand unconsciously tightened its hold on Ortensia’s waist, as if to emphasise what he was saying; and though he said little enough, she felt that his blood was up, and that it would be ill for Don Alberto to meet him in his present mood. A Tuscan would have dissolved his temper in a torrent of useless blasphemy, as Tuscans generally do, a Roman would have roared out fearful threats, a Neapolitan would have talked of the knife with many gestures; the Sicilian did not raise his voice, though it shook a little, and he only said he had borne enough, but if his enemy had appeared at that moment he would have killed him with his hands, and Ortensia understood him.
‘You must think of me too,’ she pleaded wisely. ‘If you make him fight you, one of two things will happen: either you will kill him, and then no power can save you from the Pope’s vengeance, or else he will kill you — for you will not yield till you are dead! — and I shall have to take my own wretched life to save myself from him!’
‘God forbid!’ cried Stradella in a troubled voice, and pressing her to his side again. ‘To think that I imagined we should be safer in Rome than anywhere else! I suppose you are right, sweetheart. If any harm befalls me there is no hope for you. But what am I to do? Can I take you with me each time I am obliged to go out about my business? And if not, where can I find any one whom I can trust to watch over you? As for Don Alberto, it is easy to speak moderately when he is away, but if I meet him and talk with him — —’ He stopped short, unwilling to let his anger waste itself in words.
‘Trust no one, love,’ said Ortensia softly. ‘Take me with you everywhere. I shall be far happier if you never let me be out of your sight an hour — far more happy, and altogether safe!’
‘But I cannot take you up into the organ loft when I sing, or conduct music in church! You cannot go with me behind the lattice of the Sistine choir! On Saint John’s Eve, for instance, at the Lateran, I shall have to be at least two hours with the singers and musicians. Who will take care of you?’
‘Surely,’ objected Ortensia, ‘you can trust your own man. Let him stand beside me while I sit on the pedestal of the pillar nearest to the organ, where you can see me. Or ask our two mysterious friends to guard me, for they would overmatch a dozen of Don Alberto’s sort!’
She laughed, though with a slight effort; but she saw that he was inclining to the side of discretion, at least for the present.
‘And if worse comes to the worst,’ she added, ‘we must leave Rome and live in the South, in your own country. I have always longed to go there.’
‘Even to starve with me, love?’ Stradella smiled. ‘It is not in Naples that I shall be offered three or four hundred crowns for writing a mass! Thirty or forty will be nearer the price! Instead of living in a palace we shall take up our quarters in some poor little house over the sea, at Mergellina or Posilippo, with three rooms, a kitchen, and a pigsty at the back, and we shall eat macaroni and fried cuttle-fish every day, with an orange for dessert, and a drive in a curricolo on Sunday afternoons! How will that suit the delicate tastes of the Lady Ortensia Grimani?’
‘It sounds delicious,’ Ortensia said, rubbing her cheek against his coat. ‘I delight in macaroni and oranges as it is, and I can think of nothing I should like better than to have you to myself in a little house with three rooms looking over the sea! We will give Pina a present and send her away, and Cucurullo shall cook for us. I am sure he can, and very well, and why should I need a maid? Let us go, Alessandro; promise that we shall! When can we start?’
‘Not till after Saint Peter’s Day, at all events since I have that mass to finish and conduct,’ Stradella answered, humouring her. ‘But it is impossible,’ he added, almost at once. ‘You could not live in that way, and I have no right to let you try it.’
‘We shall be happier than we ever were before!’
‘For a few days, perhaps. But the plain truth is, that I am only a poor artist, and all I have saved is a matter of a thousand crowns in Chigi’s bank. I must earn money for us both, and there is no place where I can earn as much as I can here, under the patronage of the Pope — —’
‘ — and his nephews,’ said Ortensia, completing the sentence as he hesitated; ‘and one of those nephews is Don Alberto Altieri, who pays himself for his patronage by forcing himself upon my privacy when you are gone out! That is the short of a very long story!’
Stradella stood still, struck by what she said, and he looked into her eyes; they met his a little timidly, for she feared that she had hurt him.
‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I will go at once to the Cardinal himself, and say that I cannot undertake to write the mass for the Pope. Instead of taking a new lodging, we will leave Rome on the feast of Saint John.’
CHAPTER XX
THE FOLLOWING DAYS passed quietly, and Don Alberto did not again attempt to see Ortensia alone. He was, indeed, much occupied with more urgent affairs, for Queen Christina had noticed the signs of his approaching defection and was becoming daily more exigent. On his side, young Altieri only desired to be dismissed, and instead of submitting to her despotic commands in a spirit of contrition, he cleverly managed to obey them with a sort of superior indifference that irritated her to the verge of fury. She wreaked her temper on every one who came near her, and so far forgot her royal dignity as to box the ears of poor Guidi, the deformed poet, for pointing out a grammatical mistake in some Italian verses she had composed. But he would not bear the indignity of a blow, even from her royal hand, and on that same night he packed his manuscripts and his few belongings and left Rome to seek his fortune where he might. The ex-Queen had Rome searched for him the very next day by a score of her servants, and it was one of her grooms who had mistaken Cucurullo for Guidi, because he hardly knew the poet by sight, and thought that hunchbacks were all very much alike.
Don Alberto had not neglected to speak to the Cardinal about Stradella’s mass, nor was he surprised at the careless way in which His Eminence acquiesced to the proposal and agreed that the composer should receive a handsome fee. The young man did not notice that his uncle’s thin lips twitched a little, as if with amusement. The truth was that Stradella had come to him before Don Alberto, and had explained that it was materially impossible to do what His Eminence had so kindly proposed through his nephew. The Cardinal was well aware of the latter’s passion for the musician’s wife, and was not at all inclined to encourage it, judging that there was more political advantage to be gained by his young kinsman’s continued intimacy with the ex-Queen than by a love-affair with Ortensia. For Christina was almost always engaged in some intrigue, if not in actual conspiracy, and though her dealings of this kind were as futile as her whole life had been, it was as well that the Papal Government should know what she was really about.
A week before the Feast of Saint John, Ortensia was already packing her own and Stradella’s belongings for the journey to Naples. Though she and Pina had left Venice with no baggage but a piece of white Spanish soap, a comb, and a little yellow leather work-case, Ortensia now had enough linen and gowns, and laces and ribbons, to fill two respectable trunks, and Pina was well provided with all that a serving-woman needed in the way of clothes.
Nothing had yet been said between the nurse and her mistress about Don Alb
erto’s last visit, but an explanation was inevitable. One day Pina asked if she might have a small box or a valise for her own things.
‘We shall not want you in Naples,’ said Ortensia quietly. ‘You shall have your wages from the day when my uncle last paid you, and a present of ten gold florins for your long service; but I shall not want you any more.’
She had been folding some delicate laces while she spoke, and she did not look up till she heard a little choking cry from the nurse. Pina stood grasping the back of a chair to keep herself from falling, and her face was grey.
‘Good heavens!’ cried Ortensia. ‘Are you ill? What is the matter with you?’
Pina could hardly speak; she slowly moved her bent head from side to side as if in an agony of pain.
‘It is death!’ she moaned. ‘You are sending me to die!’
Ortensia went to her and took her by the arm energetically, as if to rouse her.
‘This is absurd!’ she cried. ‘I know what you said to my husband before we fled from Venice, and it is of no use to pretend that you are going to die of grief if you leave me!’
But Pina only shook her head, and would not look up.
‘And as for having been so very faithful,’ Ortensia went on, in a tone of displeasure, ‘it was only the other day that you took money from Don Alberto to let him see me when my husband was out and I was alone! Do not deny it!’
Pina looked up now, with something of a born lady’s pride in her eyes and tone.
‘I never took a bribe in my life!’ she cried indignantly. ‘Don Alberto threatened to have me arrested and put to the question, and I was afraid, and let him in. Yes, I was afraid. I am a coward, for I have felt pain. That was done to me once, to make me confess, and more too!’
She held out her broken thumb, and her hand shook; and Ortensia shuddered as she looked at it.
‘He threatened to have my pardon cancelled, and to have me tortured again, and then sent to the Convent of Penitent Women for life! Do not be hard on me, for I was in one of those places of penance for three weeks before your uncle got me a pardon and took me to his house to be your nurse. Don Alberto frightened me — I was weak, cowardly — I let him in!’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1310