"As respects him, Signore, you are undoubtedly right. But may we not endanger our heiress by too much tenderness?"
"There are many convents in Venice, Signore."
"The monastic life is ill suited to the temper of my ward," the Signor Gradenigo drily observed, "and I fear to hazard the experiment; gold is a key to unlock the strongest cell; besides, we cannot, with due observance of propriety, place a child of the state in durance."
"Signor Gradenigo, we have had this matter under long and grave consideration, and agreeably to our laws, when one of our number hath a palpable interest in the affair, we have taken counsel of his highness, who is of accord with as in sentiment. Your personal interest in the lady might have warped your usually excellent judgment, else, be assured, we should have summoned you to the conference."
The old senator, who thus unexpectedly found himself excluded from consultation on the very matter that of all others made him most value his temporary authority, stood abashed and silent; reading in his countenance, however, a desire to know more, his associates proceeded to communicate all it was their intention he should hear.
"It hath been determined to remove the lady to a suitable retirement, and for this purpose care hath been already had to provide the means. Thou wilt be temporarily relieved of a most grievous charge, which cannot but have weighed heavily on thy spirits, and in other particulars have lessened thy much-valued usefulness to the Republic."
This unexpected communication was made with marked courtesy of manner, but with an emphasis and tone that sufficiently acquainted the Signor Gradenigo with the nature of the suspicions that beset him. He had too long been familiar with the sinuous policy of the council, in which, at intervals, he had so often sat, not to understand that he would run the risk of a more serious accusation were he to hesitate in acknowledging its justice. Teaching his features, therefore, to wear a smile as treacherous as that of his wily companion, he answered with seeming gratitude:
"His highness and you, my excellent colleagues, have taken counsel of your good wishes and kindness of heart, rather than of the duty of a poor subject of St. Mark, to toil on in his service while he hath strength and reason for the task," he said. "The management of a capricious female mind is a concern of no light moment; and while I thank you for this consideration of my case, you will permit me to express my readiness to resume the charge whenever it shall please the state again to confer it."
"Of this none are more persuaded than we, nor are any better satisfied of your ability to discharge the trust faithfully. But you enter, Signore, into all our motives, and will join us in the opinion that it is equally unbecoming the Republic, and one of its most illustrious citizens, to leave a ward of the former in a position that shall subject the latter to unmerited censure. Believe me, we have thought less of Venice in this matter than of the honor and the interests of the house of Gradenigo; for, should this Neapolitan thwart our views, you of us all would be most liable to be disapproved of."
"A thousand thanks, excellent Sir," returned the deposed guardian. "You have taken a load from my mind, and restored some of the freshness and elasticity of youth! The claim of Don Camillo now is no longer urgent, since it is your pleasure to remove the lady for a season from the city."
"'Twere better to hold it in deeper suspense, if it were only to occupy his mind. Keep up thy communications as of wont, and withhold not hope, which is a powerful exciter in minds that are not deadened by experience. We shall not conceal from one of our number, that a negotiation is already near a termination, which will relieve the state from the care of the damsel, and at some benefit to the Republic. Her estates lying without our limits greatly facilitate the treaty, which hath only been withheld from your knowledge by the consideration, that of late we have rather too much overloaded thee with affairs."
Again the Signor Gradenigo bowed submissively, and with apparent joy. He saw that his secret designs had been penetrated, notwithstanding all his practised duplicity and specious candor; and he submitted with that species of desperate resignation, which becomes a habit, if not a virtue, in men long accustomed to be governed despotically. When this delicate subject, which required the utmost finesse of Venetian policy, since it involved the interests of one who happened, at that moment, to be in the dreaded council itself, was disposed of, the three turned their attention to other matters, with that semblance of indifference to personal feeling, which practice in tortuous paths of state-intrigue enabled men to assume.
"Since we are so happily of opinion concerning the disposition of the Donna Violetta," coolly observed the oldest senator, a rare specimen of hackneyed and worldly morality, "we may look into our list of daily duties—what say the lions' mouths to-night?"
"A few of the ordinary and unmeaning accusations that spring from personal hatred," returned another. "One chargeth his neighbor with oversight in religious duties, and with some carelessness of the fasts of Holy Church—a. foolish scandal, fitted for the ears of a curate."
"Is there naught else?"
"Another complaineth of neglect in a husband. The scrawl is in a woman's hand, and beareth on its face the evidence of woman's resentment."
"Sudden to rise and easy to be appeased. Let the neighborhood quiet the household by its sneers.—What next?"
"A suitor in the courts maketh complaint of the tardiness of the judges."
"This toucheth the reputation of St. Mark; it must be looked to!"
"Hold!" interrupted the Signor Gradenigo. "The tribunal acted advisedly—'tis in the matter of a Hebrew, who is thought to have secrets of importance. The affair hath need of deliberation, I do assure you."
"Destroy the charge.—Have we more?"
"Nothing of note. The usual number of pleasantries and hobbling verses which tend to nothing. If we get some useful gleanings by these secret accusations, we gain much nonsense. I would whip a youngster of ten who could not mould our soft Italian into better rhyme than this?"
"'Tis the wantonness of security. Let it pass, for all that serveth to amuse suppresseth turbulent thoughts. Shall we now see his highness, Signori?"
"You forget the fisherman," gravely observed the Signor Gradenigo.
"Your honor sayeth true. What a head for business hath he! Nothing that is useful escapeth his ready mind."
The old senator, while he was too experienced to be cajoled by such language, saw the necessity of appearing flattered. Again he bowed, and protested aloud and frequently against the justice of compliments that he so little merited. When this little byplay was over, they proceeded gravely to consider the matter before them.
As the decision of the Council of Three will be made apparent in the course of the narrative, we shall not continue to detail the conversation that accompanied their deliberations. The sitting was long, so long indeed that when they arose, having completed their business, the heavy clock of the square tolled the hour of midnight.
"The Doge will be impatient," said one of the two nameless members, as they threw on their cloaks, before leaving the chamber. "I thought his highness wore a more fatigued and feeble air to-day, than he is wont to exhibit at the festivities of the city."
"His highness is no longer young, Signore. If I remember right, he greatly outnumbers either of us in years. Our Lady of Loretto lend him strength long to wear the ducal bonnet, and wisdom to wear it well!"
"He hath lately sent offerings to her shrine."
"Signore, he hath. His confessor hath gone in person with the offering, as I know of certainty. 'Tis not a serious gift, but a mere remembrance to keep himself in the odor of sanctity. I doubt that his reign will not be long!"
"There are, truly, signs of decay in his system. He is a worthy prince, and we shall lose a father when called to weep for his loss!"
"Most true, Signore: but the horned bonnet is not an invulnerable shield against the arrows of death. Age and infirmities are more potent than our wishes."
"Thou art moody to-night, Signor Gradenigo. Thou art not
used to be so silent with thy friends."
"I am not the less grateful, Signore, for their favors. If I have a loaded countenance, I bear a lightened heart. One who hath a daughter of his own so happily bestowed in wedlock as thine, may judge of the relief I feel by this disposition of my ward. Joy affects the exterior, frequently, like sorrow; aye, even to tears."
His two companions looked at the speaker with much obvious sympathy in their manners. They then left the chamber of doom together. The menials entered and extinguished the lights, leaving all behind them in an obscurity that was no bad type of the gloomy mysteries of the place.
Chapter XIV
*
"Then methought,
A serenade broke silence, breathing hope
Through walls of stone."
ITALY.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the melody of music was rife on the water. Gondolas continued to glide along the shadowed canals, while the laugh or the song was echoed among the arches of the palaces. The piazza and piazzetta were yet brilliant with lights, and gay with their multitudes of unwearied revellers.
The habitation of Donna Violetta was far from the scene of general amusement. Though so remote, the hum of the moving throng, and the higher strains of the wind-instruments, came, from time to time, to the ears of its inmates, mellowed and thrilling by distance.
The position of the moon cast the whole of the narrow passage which flowed beneath the windows of her private apartments into shadow. In a balcony which overhung the water, stood the youthful and ardent girl, listening with a charmed ear and a tearful eye to one of those soft strains, in which Venetian voices answered to each other from different points on the canals, in the songs of the gondoliers. Her constant companion and Mentor was near, while the ghostly father of them both stood deeper in the room.
"There may be pleasanter towns on the main, and capitals of more revelry," said the charmed Violetta, withdrawing her person from its leaning attitude, as the voices ceased; "but in such a night and at this witching hour, what city may compare with Venice?"
"Providence has been less partial in the distribution of its earthly favors than is apparent to a vulgar eye," returned the attentive Carmelite. "If we have our peculiar enjoyments and our moments of divine contemplation, other towns have advantages of their own; Genoa and Pisa, Firenze, Ancona, Roma, Palermo, and, chiefest of all, Napoli—"
"Napoli, father!"
"Daughter, Napoli. Of all the towns of sunny Italy, 'tis the fairest and the most blessed in natural gifts. Of every region I have visited, during a life of wandering and penitence, that is the country on which the touch of the Creator hath been the most God-like!"
"Thou art imaginative to-night, good Father Anselmo. The land must be fair indeed, that can thus warm the fancy of a Carmelite."
"The rebuke is just. I have spoken more under the influence of recollections that came from days of idleness and levity, than with the chastened spirit of one who should see the hand of the Maker in the most simple and least lovely of all his wondrous works."
"You reproach yourself causelessly, holy father," observed the mild Donna Florinda, raising her eyes towards the pale countenance of the monk; "to admire the beauties of nature, is to worship Him who gave them being."
At that moment a burst of music rose on the air, proceeding from the water beneath the balcony. Donna Violetta started back, abashed; and as she held her breath in wonder, and haply with that delight which open admiration is apt to excite in a youthful female bosom, the color mounted to her temples.
"There passeth a band," calmly observed the Donna Florinda.
"No, it is a cavalier! There are gondoliers, servitors in his colors."
"This is as hardy as it may be gallant," returned the monk, who listened to the air with an evident and grave displeasure.
There was no longer any doubt but that a serenade was meant. Though the custom was of much use, it was the first time that a similar honor had been paid beneath the window of Donna Violetta. The studied privacy of her life, her known destiny, and the jealousy of the despotic state, and perhaps the deep respect which encircled a maiden of her tender years and high condition, had, until that moment, kept the aspiring, the vain, and the interested, equally in awe.
"It is for me!" whispered the trembling, the distressed, the delighted Violetta.
"It is for one of us, indeed," answered the cautious friend.
"Be it for whom it may, it is bold," rejoined the monk.
Donna Violetta shrank from observation behind the drapery of the window, but she raised a hand in pleasure as the rich strains rolled through the wide apartments.
"What a taste rules the band!" she half-whispered, afraid to trust her voice lest a sound should escape her ears. "They touch an air of Petrarch's sonatas! How indiscreet, and yet how noble!"
"More noble than wise," said the Donna Florinda, who entered the balcony and looked intently on the water beneath.
"Here are musicians in the color of a noble in one gondola," she continued, "and a single cavalier in another."
"Hath he no servitor? Doth he ply the oar himself?"
"Truly that decency hath not been overlooked; one in a flowered jacket guides the boat."
"Speak, then, dearest Florinda, I pray thee."
"Would it be seemly?"
"Indeed I think it. Speak them fair. Say that I am the Senate's—that it is not discreet to urge a daughter of the state thus—say what thou wilt—but speak them fair."
"Ha! it is Don Camillo Monforte! I know him by his noble stature and the gallant wave of his hand."
"This temerity will undo him! His claim will be refused—himself banished. Is it not near the hour when the gondola of the police passes? Admonish him to depart, good Florinda—and yet can we use this rudeness to a Signor of his rank!"
"Father, counsel us; you know the hazards of this rash gallantry in the Neapolitan—aid us with thy wisdom, for there is not a moment to lose."
The Carmelite had been an attentive and an indulgent observer of the emotion which sensations so novel had awakened in the ardent but unpractised breast of the fair Venetian. Pity, sorrow, and sympathy, were painted on his mortified face, as he witnessed the mastery of feeling over a mind so guileless, and a heart so warm; but the look was rather that of one who knew the dangers of the passions, than of one who condemned them without thought of their origin or power. At the appeal of the governess he turned away and silently quitted the room. Donna Florinda left the balcony and drew near her charge. There was no explanation, nor any audible or visible means of making their sentiments known to each other. Violetta threw herself into the arms of her more experienced friend, and struggled to conceal her face in her bosom. At this moment the music suddenly ceased, and the plash of oars falling into the water succeeded.
"He is gone!" exclaimed the young creature who had been the object of the serenade, and whose faculties, spite of her confusion, had lost none of their acuteness. "The gondolas are moving away, and we have not made even the customary acknowledgments for their civility!"
"It is not needed—or rather it might increase a hazard that is already too weighty. Remember thy high destiny, my child, and let them depart."
"And yet methinks one of my station should not fail in courtesy. The compliment may mean no more than any other idle usage, and they should not quit us unthanked."
"Rest you within. I will watch the movement of the boats, for it surpasseth female endurance not to note their aspect."
"Thanks, dearest Florinda! hasten, lest they enter the other canal ere thou seest them."
The governess was quickly in the balcony. Active as was her movement, her eyes were scarcely cast upon the shadow beneath, before a hurried question demanded what she beheld.
"Both gondolas are gone," was the answer; "that with the musicians is already entering the great canal, but that of the cavalier hath unaccountably disappeared!"
"Nay, look again; he cannot be in such haste to
quit us."
"I had not sought him in the right direction. Here is his gondola, by the bridge of our own canal."
"And the cavalier? He waits for some sign of courtesy; it is meet that we should not withhold it."
"I see him not. His servitor is seated on the steps of the landing, while the gondola appeareth to be empty. The man hath an air of waiting, but I nowhere see the master!"
"Blessed Maria! can aught have befallen the gallant Duca di Sant' Agata?"
"Naught but the happiness of casting himself here!" exclaimed a voice near the person of the heiress. The Donna Violetta turned her gaze from the balcony, and beheld him who filled all her thoughts at her feet.
The cry of the girl, the exclamation of her friend, and a rapid and eager movement of the monk, brought the whole party into a group.
"This may not be," said the latter in a reproving voice. "Arise, Don Camillo, lest I repent listening to your prayer; you exceed our conditions."
"As much as this emotion exceedeth my hopes," answered the noble. "Holy father, it is a sin to oppose Providence! Providence brought me to the rescue of this lovely being when accident threw her into the Giudecca, and once more Providence is my friend, by permitting me to be a witness of this feeling. Speak, fair Violetta, thou wilt not be an instrument of the Senate's selfishness—thou wilt not hearken to their wish of disposing of thy hand on the mercenary who would trifle with the most sacred of all vows to possess thy wealth?"
"For whom am I destined?" demanded Violetta.
"No matter, since it be not for me. Some trafficker in happiness, some worthless abuser of the gifts of fortune."
"Thou knowest, Camillo, our Venetian custom, and must see that I am hopelessly in their hands."
"Arise, Duke of St. Agata," said the monk, with authority—"when I suffered you to enter this palace, it was to remove a scandal from its gates, and to save you from your own rash disregard of the state's displeasure. It is idle to encourage hopes that the policy of the Republic opposes. Arise then, and respect your pledges."
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