Part 24 (1/2)
As several guests joined them and discussed with great connoisseurs.h.i.+p the merits of the sculpture Brandilancia's thoughts wandered to his host. ”What manner of man was this Ferdinando de' Medici who had converted his garden pleasance into a museum?”
Mentally reviewing what he had heard of the Grand Duke it seemed that all that was most admirable in the race must focus in its present representative. But Marie de' Medici had let fall a disquieting remark which pointed to another side to his character. ”See, your grace,” she had said to Brandilancia, ”here is a favourite play of mine, _Il Moro di Venezia_, a sad tragedy but it stirs one's blood to read it. Perhaps it stirs mine because it is not long since tragedies like that have been enacted in my own family. Love and jealousy and revenge are a part of our heritage, and at times I long to come into my birthright, for such existence as I now lead is not life.”
This half-revelation so impressed Brandilancia that he could not expel it from his mind, and when next alone with the secretary, Malespini, he begged for an explanation.
”Tell me something,” he begged, ”of the character of the Grand Duke. I do not ask you to divulge private matters, but only such as are public property and with which I would be acquainted were I not so newly arrived in Italy.”
Malespini gave him a compa.s.sionate glance. ”I thought that all the world knew that my master was a child of Satan,” he replied coolly. ”The Signorina told you truly. He caused the death of his two sisters-in-law, and was responsible for the murder of his own sister, goading her husband the Duke of Bracciano to the act. It is commonly reported also that the Signorina's father, the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, together with his wife, Bianca Capello, were poisoned by Ferdinando, though he made the act appear to be that of the murdered d.u.c.h.ess.”
”And what,” asked the horrified Brandilancia, ”was the motive of this crime?”
”Is it not apparent? Ferdinando de Medici, then a cardinal, had just failed in his candidacy for the pontificate (outwitted by that fox Montalto). If he could not be pope it suited him as well to be Grand Duke of Tuscany.”
”If this is true is the Signorina safe in his power?”
”So long as their interests are the same, Signor. And you who are the friend of Henry of Navarre should know that the Grand Duke is anxious to place his niece upon the throne of France. Should she set her will against her uncle's ambition he would scruple at no perfidity or crime.
You wonder why I, who am in his service, should tell you this. It is because I am strangely drawn to you. From the moment I saw that you appreciated what I had written, that we spoke the same language, strove after the same ideals, I was yours heart and soul. They talk of love at first sight, a foolish matter between man and woman, but when two men recognise that they are congenial spirits it is the most natural and inevitable thing in all the world. And so I tell you again, be on your guard for your personal safety. If, however unjustly, any distrust of you should be awakened in the mind of the Grand Duke, if he imagined that the Signorina had learned to care for you, then your life, and hers as well, would not be worth one soldo.”
This conversation occasioned the guest of the villa serious thought. It obtruded itself in the very tales of intrigue, pa.s.sion, and murder which he read to drive it from his mind, those fascinating novelli with their records of b.l.o.o.d.y hereditary vendettas, of innocent or guilty lovers alike done to death by indiscriminating cruelty.
”Truly,” he thought, ”in Italy a woman's kiss and that of a poniard go often in such close company that the sweet woman's mouth which lets love in almost touches the red mouth of the wound which lets life out.”
Though not so definitely explained, he had felt the presence of danger before; but so long as it threatened himself alone it added a spice of excitement to the adventure; now, however, that he realised what grave consequences the least indiscretion on his part might bring upon Marie de' Medici herself, he determined to be doubly circ.u.mspect.
With this intention he held himself aloof from the superb mundane life of the villa, and, retiring to the library, occupied himself in translating and rearranging old plays. But all day as he wrote, though half unconsciously, his thoughts were with his fair hostess, and always at the hour of the siesta of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Marie de' Medici was with him in person. It was on the second morning of his seclusion that she had tapped at the door and offered her aid in his work; thus converting the very means by which he sought to avoid her into a stratagem for the uninterrupted enjoyment of her society.
Had Brandilancia been more sophisticated, it might have struck him as exceptional that a princess who been brought up in the strictest conventionality should have granted the privilege of such intimate a.s.sociation even to so exalted a personage as the Earl of Ess.e.x. He believed her confidence due to girlish innocence, and was more than ever determined to protect her from himself. Leonora was always on guard in the ante-room, and joined them whenever she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. It surprised this world-wise little sentinel that on none of these occasions had the young man appeared to have taken any advantage of his opportunity, and she was irritated by the amused condescension with which he treated her. He could never realise that this grotesque and tiny creature was not an uncanny child, and he had nicknamed her good-humouredly The Owlet, on account of her large round eyes.
”I had not thought the Earl of Ess.e.x so blind,” she said to him one day when they chanced to be alone.
”My eyes are not fas.h.i.+oned to see in the dark like yours, Owlet,” he replied. ”Tell me what it is you see.”
”Many things, but the plainest of all to me is that whoever you may be you are not the Earl of Ess.e.x.”
He was off his guard, and his expression confirmed her suspicions. She laughed maliciously, and her face, always sly and old beyond her years, was absolutely repulsive now as it reflected her gloating sense of her advantage.
”Put your mind at rest, my lord,” she said, mockingly. ”Your secret is safe in my keeping. I do not know your aims, but if you will take me into your confidence you are sure of success. I am only dangerous when I am angered. Why should you not succeed? The Signorina is completely infatuated with you. If we make her believe that you have a.s.sumed the character of the Earl of Ess.e.x from love of her she will readily forgive you that deceit. Together we can accomplish anything and everything, for you have a winning way with women, and I have brains--yes, more than you give me credit for--and this doll-faced girl shall make our fortunes.
When we have sucked the coffers of the Medici dry, take me with you to your own country, and I will be your faithful accomplice there also, for, misshapen and hideous as I am, I love you, my beautiful adventurer; yes, with a devotion of which my mistress is not capable, for she is vain and shallow and selfish. Oh, why did G.o.d give her the form of an angel and put my soul in the body of a demon?”
Brandilancia, up to this point speechless with astonishment, had not been able to interrupt her, and the dwarf had climbed to the table, where, perched at his elbow, she had poured her confidences into his ear; but as she drew his face to hers with her small claw-like hands he forgot all considerations of policy in an unconquerable repulsion, and wrenched himself rudely from her.
”Imp!” he exclaimed, ”your soul matches your body. You are hideous through and through.”
The look which she gave him was full of malignity. ”You shall live to learn that the good-will of a devil is better than her ill-will,” she said, as she slipped from the table and left the room.
Brandilancia's uneasy compunction which immediately followed his hasty exclamation was soon effaced by the dwarf's apparent forgiveness. ”We were both indiscreet,” she said to him the following day; ”let us forget and be friends.”
But Leonora would not forget, and the young man had lost his opportunity of making her his friend.