Part 67 (1/2)
Following in the wake of the dense ma.s.s, they at last reached the gates of a great palace, and after some waiting gained access to the s.p.a.cious courtyard. The grim old statues and armorial bearings shone in the glare of a hundred torches, and the deep echoes rang with the brazen voices of the band as, pent up within the quadrangle, the din of a large orchestra arose. On a great terrace overhead numerous figures were grouped,--indistinctly seen from the light of the _salons_ within,--but whose mysterious movements completed the charm of a very interesting picture.
Some wrapped in shawls to shroud them from the night air, some, less cautiously emerging from the rooms within, leaned over the marble bal.u.s.trade and showed their jewelled arms in the dim hazy light, while around and about them gay uniforms and costumes abounded. As Billy gave himself up to the excitement of the music, young Ma.s.sy, more interested by the aspect of the scene, gazed unceasingly at the balcony. There was just that shadowy indistinctness in the whole that invested it with a kind of romantic interest, and he could weave stories and incidents from those whose figures pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed before him. He fancied that in their gestures he could trace many meanings, and as the bent-down heads approached, and their hands touched, he fas.h.i.+oned many a tale in his own mind of moving fortunes.
”And see, she comes again to that same dark angle of the terrace,”
muttered he to himself, as, shrouded in a large mantle and with a half mask on her features, a tall and graceful figure pa.s.sed into the place he spoke of. ”She looks like one among, but not of, them. How much of heart-weariness is there in that att.i.tude; how full is it of sad and tender melancholy! Would that I could see her face! My life on't that it is beautiful! There, she is tearing up her bouquet; leaf by leaf the rose-leaves are falling, as though one by one hopes are decaying in her heart.” He pushed his way through the dense throng till he gained a corner of the court where a few leaves and flower-stems yet strewed the ground; carefully gathering up these, he crushed them in his hand, and seemed to feel as though a nearer tie bound him to the fair unknown. How little ministers to the hope; how infinitely less again will feed the imagination of a young heart!
Between them now there was, to his appreciation, some mysterious link.
”Yes,” he said to himself, ”true, I stand unknown, unnoticed; yet it is to _me_ of all the thousands here she could reveal what is pa.s.sing in that heart! I know it, I feel it! She has a sorrow whose burden I might help to bear. There is cruelty, or treachery, or falsehood arrayed against her; and through all the splendor of the scene--all the wild gayety of the orgie--some spectral image never leaves her side! I would stake existence on it that I have read her aright!”
Of all the intoxications that can entrance the human faculties, there is none so maddening as that produced by giving full sway to an exuberant imagination. The bewilderment resists every effort of reason, and in its onward course carries away its victims with all the force of a mountain torrent. A winding stair, long unused and partly dilapidated, led to the end of the terrace where she stood, and Ma.s.sy, yielding to some strange impulse, slowly and noiselessly crept up this till he gained a spot only a few yards removed from her. The dark shadow of the building almost completely concealed his figure, and left him free to contemplate her unnoticed.
Some event of interest within had withdrawn all from the terrace save herself; the whole balcony was suddenly deserted, and she alone remained, to all seeming lost to the scene around her. It was then that she removed her mask, and suffering it to fall back on her neck, rested her head pensively on her hand. Ma.s.sy bent over eagerly to try and catch sight of her face; the effort he made startled her, she looked round, and he cried out, ”Ida--Ida! My heart could not deceive me!” In another instant he had climbed the balcony and was beside her.
”I thought we had parted forever, Sebastian,” said she; ”you told me so on the last night at Ma.s.sa.”
”And so I meant when I said it,” cried he; ”nor is our meeting now of my planning. I came to Florence, it is true, to see, but not to speak with you, ere I left Europe forever. For three entire days I have searched the city to discover where you lived, and chance--I have no better name for it--chance has led me hither.”
”It is an unkind fortune that has made us meet again,” said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.
”I have never known fortune in any other mood,” said he, fiercely. ”When clouds show me the edge of their silver linings, I only prepare myself for storm and hurricane.”
”I know you have endured much,” said she, in a voice of deeper sadness.
”You know but little of what I have endured,” rejoined he, sternly.
”You saw me taunted, indeed, with my humble calling, insulted for my low birth, expelled ignominiously from a house where my presence had been sought for; and yet all these, grievous enough, are little to other evils I have had to bear.”
”By what unhappy accident, what mischance, have you made _her_ your enemy, Sebastian? She would not even suffer me to speak to you. She went so far as to tell me that there was a reason for the dislike,--one which, if she could reveal, I would never question.”
”How can I tell?” cried he, angrily. ”I was born, I suppose, under an evil star; for nothing prospers with me.”
”But can you even guess her reasons?” said she, eagerly.
”No, except it be the presumption of one in _my_ condition daring to aspire to one in _yours_; and that, as the world goes, would be reason enough. It is probable, too, that I did not state these pretensions of mine over delicately. I told her, with a frankness that was not quite acceptable, I was one who could not speak of birth or blood. She did not like the coa.r.s.e word I applied to myself, and I will not repeat it; and she ventured to suggest that, had there not appeared some ambiguity in her own position, _I_ could never have so far forgotten mine as to advance such pretensions--”
”Well, and then?” cried the girl, eagerly.
”Well, and then,” said he, deliberately, ”I told her I had heard rumors of the kind she alluded to, but to _me_ they carried no significance; that it was for _you_ I cared. The accidents of life around you had no influence on my choice; you might be all that the greatest wealth and highest blood could make you, or as poor and ign.o.ble as myself, without any change in my affections. 'These,' said she, 'are the insulting promptings of that English breeding which you say has mixed with your blood, and if for no other cause would make me distrust you.'
”'Stained as it may be,' said I, 'that same English blood is the best pride I possess.' She grew pale with pa.s.sion as I said this, but never spoke a word; and there we stood, staring haughtily at each other, till she pointed to the door, and so I left her. And now, Ida, who is she that treats me thus disdainfully? I ask you not in anger, for I know too well how the world regards such as me to presume to question its harsh injustice. But tell me, I beseech you, that she is one to whose station these prejudices are the fitting accompaniments, and let me feel that it is less myself as the individual that she wrongs, than the cla.s.s I belong to is that which she despises. I can better bear this contumely when I know that it is an instinct.”
”If birth and blood can justify a prejudice, a Princess of the house of Delia Torre might claim the privilege,” said the girl, haughtily. ”No family of the North, at least, will dispute with our own in lineage; but there are other causes which may warrant all that she feels towards you even more strongly, Sebastian. This boast of your English origin, this it is which has doubtless injured you in her esteem. Too much reason has she had to cherish the antipathy! Betrayed into a secret marriage by an Englishman who represented himself as of a race n.o.ble as her own, she was deserted and abandoned by him afterwards. This is the terrible mystery which I never dared to tell you, and which led us to a life of seclusion at Ma.s.sa. This is the source of that hatred towards all of a nation which she must ever a.s.sociate with the greatest misfortunes of her life! And from this unhappy event was she led to make me take that solemn oath that I spoke of, never to link my fortunes with one of that hated land.”
”But you told me that you had not made the pledge,” said he, wildly.
”Nor had I then, Sebastian; but since we last met, worked on by solicitation, I could not resist; tortured by a narrative of such sorrows as I never listened to before, I yielded, and gave my promise.”
”It matters little to _me!_” said he, gloomily; ”a barrier the more or the less can be of slight moment when there rolls a wide sea between us!
Had you ever loved me, such a pledge had been impossible.”