Part 8 (1/2)
_The_ CARDINAL _folds the letter and beckons_ Diego _to approach, then speaks in a manner suddenly altered to abruptness, but with no enquiry in his tone_.
Signor Diego, you are a woman----
DIEGO _starts, flushes and exclaims huskily_, ”My Lord----.” _But the_ CARDINAL _makes a deprecatory movement and continues his sentence_.
and, as my honoured Venetian correspondent a.s.sures me, a courtesan of some experience and of more than usual tact. I trust this favourable judgment may be justified. The situation is delicate; and the work for which you have been selected is dangerous as well as difficult. Have you been given any knowledge of this case?
DIEGO _has by this time recovered his composure, and answers with respectful reserve_.
DIEGO
I asked no questions, your Eminence. But the Senator Gratiano vouchsafed to tell me that my work at Mantua would be to soothe and cheer with music your n.o.ble nephew Duke Ferdinand, who, as is rumoured, has been a prey to a certain languor and moodiness ever since his return from many years' captivity among the Infidels. Moreover (such were the Senator Gratiano's words), that if the Fates proved favourable to my music, I might gain access to His Highness's confidence, and thus enable your Eminence to understand and compa.s.s his strange malady.
CARDINAL
Even so. You speak discreetly, Diego; and your manner gives hope of more good sense than is usual in your s.e.x and in your trade. But this matter is of more difficulty than such as you can realise. Your being a woman will be of use should our scheme prove practicable. In the outset it may wreck us beyond recovery. For all his gloomy apathy, my nephew is quick to suspicion, and extremely subtle. He will delight in flouting us, should the thought cross his brain that we are practising some coa.r.s.e and foolish stratagem. And it so happens, that his strange moodiness is marked by abhorrence of all womankind. For months he has refused the visits of his virtuous mother. And the mere name of his young cousin and affianced bride, Princess Hippolyta, has thrown him into paroxysms of anger. Yet Duke Ferdinand possesses all his faculties. He is aware of being the last of our house, and must know full well that, should he die without an heir, this n.o.ble dukedom will become the battlefield of rapacious alien claimants. He denies none of this, but nevertheless looks on marriage with unseemly horror.
DIEGO
Is it so?----And----is there any reason His Highness's melancholy should take this shape? I crave your Eminence's pardon if there is any indiscretion in this question; but I feel it may be well that I should know some more upon this point. Has Duke Ferdinand suffered some wrong at the hands of women? Or is it the case of some pa.s.sion, hopeless, unfitting to his rank, perhaps?
CARDINAL
Your imagination, good Madam Magdalen, runs too easily along the tracks familiar to your s.e.x; and such inquisitiveness smacks too much of the courtesan. And beware, my lad, of touching on such subjects with the Duke: women and love, and so forth. For I fear, that while endeavouring to elicit the Duke's secret, thy eyes, thy altered voice, might betray thy own.
DIEGO
Betray me? My secret? What do you mean, my Lord? I fail to grasp your meaning.
CARDINAL
Have you so soon forgotten that the Duke must not suspect your being a woman? For if a woman may gradually melt his torpor, and bring him under the control of reason and duty, this can only come about by her growing familiar and necessary to him without alarming his moody virtue.
DIEGO
I crave your Eminence's indulgence for that one question, which I repeat because, as a musician, it may affect my treatment of His Highness. Has the Duke ever loved?
CARDINAL
Too little or too much,--which of the two it will be for you to find out. My nephew was ever, since his boyhood, a pious and joyless youth; and such are apt to love once, and, as the poets say, to die for love.
Be this as it may, keep to your part of singer; and even if you suspect that he suspects you, let him not see your suspicion, and still less justify his own. Be merely a singer: a s.e.xless creature, having seen pa.s.sion but never felt it; yet capable, by the miracle of art, of rousing and soothing it in others. Go warily, and mark my words: there is, I notice, even in your speaking voice, a certain quality such as folk say melts hearts; a trifle hoa.r.s.eness, a something of a break, which mars it as mere sound, but gives it more power than that of sound.
Employ that quality when the fit moment comes; but most times restrain it. You have understood?
DIEGO
I think I have, my Lord.
CARDINAL