A Jay of Italy Read online

  *CHAPTER III*

  The lady of Casa Caprona had flown her tassel-gentle and missed herquarry. Outwardly she seemed little disturbed by her failure--asinsolent as indolent--an imperious serenity in a velvet frame. Theoccasion which had given, which was still giving, Carlo a tough thoughtor two to digest, she had already, on the morning following herdiscomfiture, assimilated, apparently without a pang. 'The which dothdemonstrate,' thought Cicada, as he took covert and venomous note ofher, 'a signal point of difference between the sexes. In self-indulgentwickedness there may be little to distinguish man from woman. In thereaction from it, there is this: The man is subject to qualms ofconscience; the woman is not. She may be disenchanted, surfeited,aggrieved against fate or circumstance; she is not offended withherself. Remorse never yet spoiled her sleep, unless where she desiredand doubted it on her account in another. What she hath done she hathdone; and what she hath failed to do slumbers for her among theunrealities--among things unborn--seeds in the womb of Romance, which,though she be the first subject for it, she understands as little as shedoes beauty. From the outset hath she been manoeuvring to confuse theNature in man by using its distorted image in herself to lure him. Outupon her crimps and lacings! _He_ would be dressing and thinking to-daylike an Arcadian shepherd, an she had not warped his poor vision withher sorcery! She wears the vestments of ugliness, and its worship isher religion.'

  It must be admitted that he offered himself a cross illustration to hisown text. The desperate concession wrung from him last night in amoment of vinous exaltation, had found his sober morning senses under amountain of depression. He was bitterly aggrieved against fate; yet theonly quarrel he had with himself was for that mad vow of temperance, notfor the vice which had exacted it of him. The tongue in his head waslike a heater in an iron. Tantalus draughts lipped and bubbled againsthis palate. The parched soil of his heart, he felt, would never againblossom in little lonely oases--never again know the solace of dreamsaloof from the world. His traffic being by no means with heaven, God,he supposed, had sent an angel to convert it. And he had succumbedthrough the angel's calling him--mother!

  He struck his hollow breast with a wild laugh. He groaned over thememory of that emotional folly. He damned himself, his trade, hisemployer, his aching head--everything and every one, in short, but theauthor of his misery. Him he could not curse--not more than if thatpreposterous relationship between them had been real. Neither did heonce dream of violating his word to him, since it had been given--absurdthought--to his child.

  He was none the less savage against circumstance--vicious, desperate,insolent with his master, as cross all over as a Good Friday bun.Messer Lanti, himself in a curiously sober mood, indulged his most acridsallies with a good-humoured tolerance which, contemptuously obliviousas it was of any late smart of his own inflicting, was harder than theblow itself in its implication of a fault overlooked.

  'Rally, Cicca!' said he, as they were preparing to horse; 'look'st assour as a green crab. What! if we are to ride with Folly, give us afool's text for the journey, man.'

  Cicada dwelt a moment on his stirrup, looking round banefully.

  'And who to illustrate it, lord?'

  'Why, thy lord, if thou wilt,' said Carlo. 'He will be no curmudgeon ina bid for laughter.'

  The Fool gained his mule's saddle, and digging heels into the beast'sflanks, drove forward. Lanti, with a whoop, spurred alongside of him.Cicada slowed to a stop.

  'Hast overtaken Folly, master?' said he, with a leer. 'I knew you wouldnot be long.'

  Carlo scratched his head. The Fool turned and rode back; so did theother. By the brook-side little Bembo was preparing to mount a steedwith which he had been accommodated, since the lady had peremptorilydeclined to ride pillion to him again. Cicada referred to him with agesture.

  'For us,' he said, 'we are two fools in a leash, sith Sanctity, stoppingwhere he was, is at the goal before us.'

  Lanti grumbled: 'O, if this is a text!' and beat his wits desperately.

  'A text, sirrah!' he roared, 'a text for the journey.'

  'I will rhyme it you,' said the Fool imperturbably, pointing his baubleat Madam Beatrice, who at the moment stepped from the green tent:--

  'Nothing is gained to start apace, After another hath won the race.

  Shall you and I be jogging, master?'

  Lanti raised his whip furiously. Cicada, slipping from his mule, dodgedbehind Bembo.

  'Save me!' he squealed, 'save me! I am sound. It is folly to give asound man a tonic.'

  Carlo burst into a vexed laugh.

  'Well,' said he, 'go to. I think I am in a rare mood for charity.'

  The little party breakfasted on cups of clear water from the spring,and, in the fresh of the morning, folded its tents and started leisurelyon the final stages of its journey. Madonna, lazy-lidded, sat herpalfrey like a vine-goddess. Her bosom rose and fell in absolutetranquillity. She bestirred herself only, when Bembo rode near, tolavish ostentatious fondness on her Carlo, a regard which her Carlorepaid with a like ostentation of attention towards his little saint.It was an open conspiracy of souls, bared to one another, to justifytheir nakedness before heaven; only the woman carried off her shame withan air. Bernardo she ignored loftily; but her heart was busy, under allits calm exterior, with a poisonous point of vengeance.

  Presently, the sun striking hot, she dismounted and withdrew into herlitter, a miniature long waggon, drawn on rude wheels by a yoke ofsleepy oxen, and having an embroidered tilt opening to the side. Agroom, walking there in attendance, led her palfrey by the bridle.Lanti and his guest, with the Fool for company, rode a distance ahead.The young nobleman was thoughtful and silent; yet it was obvious thathe, with the others, felt the relief of that secession. Bernardo brokeinto a bright laugh, and rallied Cicada on his glumness.

  'Why should I be merry,' said the jester, with a sour face, 'when I wasinvited to a feast, and threatened with a cudgelling for attending?'

  Bernardo looked at him lovingly. He thought this was some allusion tohis self-enforced abstinence.

  'Dear Cicca,' said he, 'the feast was not worth the reckoning.'

  'O, was it not!' cried Cicada with a hoarse crow. 'But I spoke of mylord's brains, which, by the token, are the right flap-doodle.'

  He put Bembo between himself and Lanti.

  'Judge between us,' he cried, 'judge between us, Messer Parablist. Heoffered to serve himself up to me, and, when I had no more than openedmy mouth, was already at my ribs.'

  Carlo, on the further side, laughed loud.

  'It is always the same here,' grumbled the Fool. 'They will have ourstings drawn like snakes' before they will sport with us. They love notin this Italy the joke which tells against themselves--of that a poormotley must ware. It muzzles him, muzzles him--drives the poison downand in; and you wonder at the bile in my face!'

  He fell back, having uttered his snarl, with politic suddenness, andposted to the rear of the litter. The moment he was away, Bembo turnedupon his host with a kindling look of affection.

  'I am glad to have thee alone one moment,' said he. 'O Carlo, dear! thebase bright metal so to seduce thine eyes. Are they not opened?'

  Now the tale of madam's discomfiture at her amoroso's hands the nightbefore had not been long in reaching the boy's ears. She had notdeigned, equally in confessing her predilections as her shame, to utterthem out of the common hearing. Modesty in intrigue was a paradox; and,in any case, one could undress without emotion in the presence of one'sdogs.

  So Cicada, putting two and two together, had gathered the whole story,and given this spiritual bantling of his a hint as to his wise policythereon, scarce a sentence of which had he uttered before he was castingdown his eyes and mumbling inarticulate under the piercing gaze of anhonesty which would have been even less effective had it spoken. Thenhad he slunk away, blessing all beatitudes whose innocence entailed suchresponsibilities on their worshippers; and, as a result
, here was MasterTruth taking his own course with the problem.

  Messer Lanti's eyes opened indeed to hear truth so fearless; but he madean acrid face.

  'On my soul!' he muttered, glistening, and stopped, and his brow wasshadowed a moment under a devil's wing. Then suddenly, with an oath, heclapped spurs to his horse, and galloped a furlong, and, circling, cameback at a trot, and falling again alongside, put a quite gentle hand onthe boy's bridle arm.

  'Dear, pretty Messer Truth,' said he, 'I pray you, on my sincerity, turnyour horse's head. Whither, think you, are you making?'

  'Why, for heaven, I hope, Carlo,' said the boy with a smile.

  'Milan is not the gate to it,' answered the rough voice, quiteentreatingly. 'Go back, I advise you. You will break your heart on thestones. Why, look here: dost think I am so concerned to have thisintrigue proved the common stuff of passion? I care not the feather inthy cap, Bernardino. Nay, I am the better for it, sith it opens the wayto a change. And so with ten thousand others. There is the measure ofyour task. Now, will you go back?'

  'No, by my faith!'

  Lanti growled, and grunted, and smacked his thigh.

  'Then I cannot help thee: and yet I will help thee. Saint Ambrose! Toremodel the world to goodwill, statecraft and all, on the lisp of a redmouth! Wilt be the fashion for just a year and a day, shouldering us,every one, poor gallants, to the wall? Why should I love thee for that?and I love thee nevertheless. There thou goest in a silken doublet, towhip all hell with a lute-string; and I--I had shown less temerityhorsed and armoured, and with a whole roaring crusade at my back.'

  Bembo smiled very kindly.

  'Christ's love was all _His_ sword and buckler,' said he.

  'And He was crucified,' said Carlo grimly.

  'And died a virgin,' answered the boy, 'that He might make for everchaste Love His heir.'

  'Well,' grumbled Lanti, 'there reigns an impostor these fourteen hundredyears or so in His place, that's all. I hope the right heir may provehis title. 'Tis a long tenure to dispossess. Methinks men haveforgotten.'

  'Yes, they have forgotten,' said the boy; and he began to sing sosweetly as he rode, that the other, after a grunt or two, sunk into amere grudging rapture of listening.

  In the meantime, sombre and taciturn, the Fool rode in the rear. Beforehim hulked the great shoulders, stoppered with the little round head, ofNarcisso, the groom who led Madonna's palfrey. Cicada, regarding thisbeauty, snarled out a laugh to himself. 'Sure never,' he thought, 'wasparental fondness worse bestowed than in nicknaming such a satyr.' Thecreature's small, bony jaw, like a pike's, underhung, black-tufted,viciousness incarnate; his pursed, overlapping brow, with the dirtyspecks of eyes set fixedly in the under-hollows--in all, the meansmallness of his features, contrasted with the slouching, fleshly bulkbelow, suggested one of those antediluvian monsters, whose huge bodiesand little mouths and throttles give one a sense of disproportion thatis almost like an indecency. Nevertheless, Narcisso was madam's chosenattendant at her curtain side, where occasionally Cicada would detectsome movement, or the shadow of one, which convinced him that the twowere in stealthy communication. Indeed, he had posted himself where hewas, with no other purpose than to watch for such a sign.

  Once he saw the hem of the curtain lift ever so slightly, and Narcissoat the same instant respond, with a secret movement of his hand, towardsthe place. Something glittered momentarily, and was extinguished.Cicada stretched himself in his saddle, and began to whistle.

  Presently he pushed ahead once more and joined his master. Opening withsome jest, he led him away, and they fell into an amble together.Afterwards it was apparent to some of Messer Lanti's following that, asthe morning advanced, their lord's brow darkened from its early rudefrankness, and began to exhibit certain tokens of a wakening devil withwhich they had plenty of reason to be familiar. Perhaps he wanted hisdinner. Perhaps the near-approaching termination of his summeridyll--for they were long now in the great Lombardy plain, and thetowers of Milan were growing, low and small, out of the horizon--wasdepressing him. Anyhow, his first condescension was all gone by noon,when they halted, a league short of the city, to rest and dine at the'Angel and Tower,' a prosperous inn of the suburbs set among mellowingvineyards.

  Of all the company Bernardo was perhaps the only one unconscious of thethreatening atmosphere. Wonderful thoughts were kindling in him at thenear prospect of this, the goal to all his hopes and ambitions. Milan!It was Milan at last--the capital of his promised estate of love. Blueand small, swimming far away in the sun mists of the plains, he feltthat he could clasp it all in his arms, and carry it to the foot of theThrone. His eyes brightened with clear tears: this salvage of the dark,dead ages reclaimed to God! '_Domine!_' he exclaimed in ecstasy,clasping his hands: '_Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam_! O Lord,touch mine eyes, that they may penetrate even where Thy light shinethlike a glow-worm in deep mosses!'

  Carlo roughly shouted him to their meal. His heart was throbbing withan emotional rapture as he obeyed. The table was served in a trellisedalley, under hanging stalactites of grapes. Beatrice flagged on a benchat the end of the board, her shoulders sunk into a bower all crushed ofsunshine and green shadows. It was the vine-goddess come home, soft,sensual, making a lust of fatigue. Her lids were half-closed; her teethshowed in a small, indolent smile; light, reflected from the purpleclusters, slept on the warm ivory of her skin. Bernardo, comingopposite her, stood transfixed before a vision of such utter animalloveliness. His breath seemed to mount quicker as he gazed. Carlodrummed on the board, where he sat hunched over it. Looking from one tothe other, he puffed out a little ironic laugh.

  'Wonderest what is passing there, boy?' said he. 'Wilt never know. Nota hair would she turn though, like Althea, she were to find herself inchild with a firebrand.'

  Bernardo lowered his eyes with a blush.

  'Nay,' said he, 'my thoughts of Madonna were more tempered. I covetedonly her beauty for heaven.'

  'Anon, Messer, anon!' cried the other banteringly: 'be not so free withmy property. I hold her yet about the waist, seest, with a silverfetter? If there be a prior claim to mine----'

  'Ay, Chastity's,' put in the boy.

  Lanti hooted.

  'Tempt her, if thou wilt, with such a suitor. She will follow him asshe would the hangman. Wilt throw off thy belt, Beatrice? I gave athousand scudi for it. See what Chastity here will offer thee in itsroom.'

  'I will answer, if I may examine it,' said Bembo gravely. 'Will youtell her to unclasp it, Carlo, and let me look? I see it is all hingedof antique coins. There was a Father at San Zeno collected suchthings.'

  'What, ladies' girdles!'

  'Now, Carlo! you know I mean the coins. Methinks I recognise a text inone of them.'

  Beatrice shrugged her shoulders, with a little yawn expressive ofintolerable boredom.

  'Well,' quoth Lanti impatiently, 'let him see it, you and he shallparable us for grace to meat, while these laggard dogs'--he looked overhis shoulder, growling for his dinner.

  Beatrice unclasped the cincture without a word, and flung itindifferently across the table. She had lain as impassive throughouther own discussing by the others as a slave being negotiated in amarket. Not a tremor of her eyelids had acknowledged either her lord'srudeness or Bembo's provisional compliment.

  The boy took up the belt and examined it. He was conscious of a sweetperfume that had come into his hands with the trinket. His lips wereparted a little, his cheeks flushed. Presently he put it down softly,and looked across at Beatrice.

  'It is what I thought,' said he--'the coin, I mean--a denarius ofTiberius, in the thirty-first year of Our Lord Shall I tell you what itsays to me, Madonna?'

  She did not take the trouble to answer.

  'Yes,' roared Carlo.

  Bembo slung his lute to the front, and began coaxing forth one of thoseodd, shy accompaniments of his, into which, a moment later, his voicemelted:--

  'When Tiberius was Em
peror, For thirty silver pieces bearing his image Did Judas betray his Lord; Then, himself betrayed to blood-guilt, cast them ringing On the flags of the Temple, and maddened forth and died. But the Jew elders eyed askance The sleek, round coins, accurst and yet no whit Depreciated as currency, And ogling them and each other, were silent, till one spoke: "Ill come; well sped. We need a place to bury the dead. Let the Potter take these, and in return Change us his field, o'er which we long have haggled. So shall this outlay bring us two-fold profit, Yet leave us conscience-clean before the Lord."

  Thus, gentles dear, was bought "The Field of Blood"; And thus the wicked, damned price returned Into the veins of traffic, there to circulate And poison where it ran. One piece found Hope, and changed was for Despair; And Charity one led to hoard for self; And one reached Faith, and Faith became a whore. But, most of all, what had betrayed Love sore, Sweet Love was used to betray for evermore.'

  His voice broke on a long-drawn wailing chord. A little silencesucceeded. Then, like one spent, he took up the belt and offered it toBeatrice.

  'O Madonna!' he said, 'it is a denarius of the Caesar that betrayedLove. Take back thy wages.'

  She dragged down a spray of vine-leaves, and fanned herself furiouslywith it, making no other response.

  'So! I am Judas!' cried Carlo; and began to bite his moustache,mouthing and glowering.

  'Love!' he sputtered, 'love! Is there no love in nature? You talk ofthe human God, you----'

  Beatrice broke in scornfully:--

  'It is the world-wisdom of the monastery. He shall sing you love onlyby the Litany. His queen shall be a virgin immaculate, and her bosom ashrine for the white lambs of chastity to fold in. A fine proselyte forpassion's understanding! I would not be so converted for allPalestine.'

  Carlo laughed, with some fierce recovery to good-humour.

  'Hearest her, Bernardo? Thou shalt not prevail there, unless byconvincing that thou speak'st from experience.'

  Bembo had sunk down upon the bench, where, resting languidly, he stillfingered the strings of his lute. Now suddenly, steadfastly, he lookedacross at the girl, and began to sing again:--

  'Love kept me an hour From all hours that pass; In her breast, like a flower, She stored it, sweet, fragrant, Of all time the vagrant, Alas, and alas!

  Of all time the flower, Of all hours that pass, For me was that hour, When I cared claim it, And kiss it and shame it, Alas, and alas!

  I dared not, sweet hour-- I let thee go pass; And heaven is my dower. My crown is stars seven: I am a saint in heaven, Alas, and alas!'

  He never took his eyes, while he sang, off the wondering face oppositehim. It was strangely transformed by the end--flesh startled out ofivory--the face of a wakened Galatea. Narcisso coming at the moment toplace the first dishes of the meal before the company, she sat up, herhands to her bosom, with a quick, agitated movement.

  'It is well,' she said. 'I am thy convert, saint in heaven!' Shelifted the dish before her, and held it out with a nervous smile. 'Letus exchange pledges, by the token. Give me thy meat, and take mine.'

  Carlo, watching and listening, knitted his brow in a sudden frown, andhis hand stole down to his belt.

  'Give me thy dish,' said Beatrice, almost with entreaty.

  Bernardo laughed. With the finish of his madrigal he had pushed hislute, in a hurry of pink shame, to his shoulder.

  'Nay, Madonna,' he protested. 'Like the simplest doctor, I but spoke myqualifications. Feeling is half-way to curing, and the best recommendedphysician is he who hath practised on himself. I ask no reward but thyforbearance.'

  'Give it me,' she still said. She was on her feet. She kissed the rimof the dish. 'Wilt thou refuse now? Bid him to, Carlo.'

  'Not I,' said Lanti. 'Hath not, no more than myself, been whipped intothe classics for nothing? _Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum_.We know what that means, he and I.'

  She seemed to turn very pale.

  'Nay,' said Bernardo, jumping up, 'if Madonna condescends?' and theexchange was made, and the men fell to.

  In a moment or two Lanti looked up.

  'What ails thee, Beatrice?'

  'I am not hungry.'

  The word had scarcely left her lips before, leaping to his feet, andsprawling across the table, he had snatched the untasted dish from underher hands, turned, and dashed it with its contents full in the face ofNarcisso, who waited, with others, behind. Fouled, bleeding,half-stunned, the man crashed down in a heap, and in the same instanthis master was upon him, poniard in hand.

  'Confess, wretch, before I kill thee!' he roared. 'It was meant for myguest! Thou wouldst have poisoned him.'

  'Mercy!' shrieked the creature, through his filthy mask. 'O lord,mercy!'

  The girl, risen in her place, stood panting as if she had been running.She had voice no more than to gasp across, 'Bernardo! For the love ofGod! Bernardo!' and that was all.

  'No mercy, beast!' thundered Carlo. 'Down with thee to hell unshriven!'

  His strenuous lifted arm was caught in a baby grasp.

  'Carlo! forbear! The right is mine! Give me the knife! Nay, I am thestronger!'

  With the blood-lust halted in him for one moment, the powerful creatureturned upon his puny assailant with a roar:--

  'The stronger! Thou!'

  Nevertheless he rose, though he held the reptile crushed under his foot,while the company, landlord and all, stood huddled aghast. His breastwas heaving like the pulse of a volcano.

  'The knife!' he gurgled hoarsely; 'well, the right is thine, as thousayest. Take it--under with thee, dog!--and drive in.'

  Bembo seized and flung the dagger into the thick of the vines; thenthrew himself on his knees, and, with all his strength, tore the heavyfoot from its victim.

  'Narcisso,' he said, 'is it true? wouldst have slain Love! Ah, fool,not to know that Love is immortal!'

  'Now, Christ in heaven,' roared Carlo, 'if that shall save him!'

  Bernardo rose, and sprang, and cast himself upon his breast, writhinghis limbs about him.

  'Fly!' he shrieked, 'fly! while I hold him!' Then to Lanti: 'Ah, dear,do not hurt me, who owe thee so much!'

  The fallen scoundrel was quick to the opportunity. He rose and fled,bloody and bemired, from the arbour. Madonna, seeing him escape, sunk,with a fainting sigh, upon her bench.

  Carlo mouthed after his vanishing prey; yet he was tender with hisburden.

  'Love!' he groaned: 'Thou ow'st me? Not this--so damned to folly!There, let go. He was but the tool--and, for the rest----'

  He glowered round.

  'Hush!' said Bembo. 'It is but the fruits of her teaching. Blame notthy pupil, Carlo.'

  '_My_ pupil!'

  'Is she Christ's--or art thou? Love gives life, Carlo; and all life isGod's, since Christ redeemed it.'

  'What then?'

  'Why, is not thine honour thy life?'

  'I would die at least to prove it.'

  'Alas! and thou hast dishonoured love, which is life, which is God's.Wouldst eat thy cake and have it, great schoolboy?'

  'Pish! Art beyond me.'

  'Why, if love is life, and life is honour--ergo, love is honour.'

  'Is it? I dare say.'

  'But thou must know it.'

  'I know nothing but that thou hast balked my vengeance; and with that,and having exercised thy jaw, let us go back to dinner.'

  '_Domine, emitte tuam lucem!_' sighed Bembo.