CHAPTER XI
LAURA PIAVENI
After dark on the same day antecedent to the outbreak, Vittoria, withher faithful Beppo at her heels, left her mother to run and pass onecomforting hour in the society of the Signora Laura Piaveni and herchildren.
There were two daughters of a parasitical Italian nobleman, of whomone had married the patriot Giacomo Piaveni, and one an Austriandiplomatist, the Commendatore Graf von Lenkenstein. Count Serabiglionewas traditionally parasitical. His ancestors all had moved in Courts.The children of the House had illustrious sponsors. The House itself wasa symbolical sunflower constantly turning toward Royalty. Great excusesare to be made for this, the last male descendant, whose father inhis youth had been an Imperial page, and who had been nursed in theconception that Italy (or at least Lombardy) was a natural fief ofAustria, allied by instinct and by interest to the holders of the Alps.Count Serabiglione mixed little with his countrymen,--the statementmight be inversed,--but when, perchance, he was among them, he talkedwillingly of the Tedeschi, and voluntarily declared them to be gross,obstinate, offensive-bears, in short. At such times he would intimate inany cordial ear that the serpent was probably a match for the bear ina game of skill, and that the wisdom of the serpent was shown inhis selection of the bear as his master, since, by the ordination ofcircumstances, master he must have. The count would speak pityingly ofthe poor depraved intellects which admitted the possibility of a comingKingdom of Italy united: the lunatics who preached of it he considered asort of self-elected targets for appointed files of Tyrolese jagers.But he was vindictive against him whom he called the professionaldoctrinaire, and he had vile names for the man. Acknowledging thatItaly mourned her present woes, he charged this man with the crimeof originating them:--and why? what was his object? He was, the countdeclared in answer, a born intriguer, a lover of blood, mad for thesmell of it!--an Old Man of the Mountain; a sheaf of assassins; andmore--the curse of Italy! There should be extradition treaties all overthe world to bring this arch-conspirator to justice. The door of hisconscience had been knocked at by a thousand bleeding ghosts, andnothing had opened to them. What was Italy in his eyes? A chess-board;and Italians were the chessmen to this cold player with live flesh.England nourished the wretch, that she might undermine the peace of theContinent.
Count Serabiglione would work himself up in the climax of denunciation,and then look abroad frankly as one whose spirit had been relieved.He hated bad men; and it was besides necessary for him to denouncesomebody, and get relief of some kind. Italians edged away from him. Hewas beginning to feel that he had no country. The detested title 'YoungItaly' hurried him into fits of wrath. 'I am,' he said, 'one of the OldItalians, if a distinction is to be made.' He assured his listenersthat he was for his commune, his district, and aired his old-Italianprejudices delightedly; clapping his hands to the quarrels of Milan andBrescia; Florence and Siena--haply the feuds of villages--and the commonNorth-Italian jealousy of the chief city. He had numerous capital talesto tell of village feuds, their date and origin, the stupid effortto heal them, and the wider consequent split; saying, 'We have, allItalians, the tenacity, the unforgiveness, the fervent blood of pureHebrews; and a little more gaiety, perhaps; together with a love of fairthings. We can outlive ten races of conquerors.'
In this fashion he philosophized, or forced a kind of philosophy. But hehad married his daughter to an Austrian, which was what his countrymencould not overlook, and they made him feel it. Little by little, halfacquiescing, half protesting, and gradually denationalized, the countwas edged out of Italian society, save of the parasitical class, whichhe very much despised. He was not a happy man. Success at the ImperialCourt might have comforted him; but a remorseless sensitiveness of hisnature tripped his steps.
Bitter laughter rang throughout Lombardy when, in spite of his effortsto save his daughter's husband, Giacomo Piaveni suffered death. Noharder blow had ever befallen the count: it was as good as a publicproclamation that he possessed small influence. To have bent the kneewas not afflicting to this nobleman's conscience: but it was an anguishto think of having bent the knee for nothing.
Giacomo Piaveni was a noble Italian of the young blood, son of a Generalloved by Eugene. In him the loss of Italy was deplorable. He perished bytreachery at the age of twenty-three years. So splendid was this youthin appearance, of so sweet a manner with women, and altogether so-gentleand gallant, that it was a widowhood for women to have known him: andat his death the hearts of two women who had loved him in rivalry becamebound by a sacred tie of friendship. He, though not of distinguishedbirth, had the choice of an almost royal alliance in the first blushof his manhood. He refused his chance, pleading in excuse to CountSerabiglione, that he was in love with that nobleman's daughter, Laura;which it flattered the count to hear, but he had ever after a contemptfor the young man's discretion, and was observed to shrug, with thesmooth sorrowfulness of one who has been a prophet, on the day whenGiacomo was shot. The larger estates of the Piaveni family, then inGiacomo's hands, were in a famous cheese-making district, producing adelicious cheese:--'white as lambkins!' the count would ejaculate mostdolefully; and in a rapture of admiration, 'You would say, a marblequarry when you cut into it.' The theme was afflicting, for all theestates of Giacomo were for the time forfeit, and the pleasant agitationproduced among his senses by the mention of the cheese reminded him atthe same instant that he had to support a widow with two children. TheSignora Piaveni lived in Milan, and the count her father visited hertwice during the summer months, and wrote to her from his fitful Winterresidences in various capital cities, to report progress in the settledscheme for the recovery of Giacomo's property, as well for his widowas for the heirs of his body. 'It is a duty,' Count Serabiglione saidemphatically. 'My daughter can entertain no proposal until her childrenare duly established; or would she, who is young and lovely and archlycapricious, continue to decline the very best offers of the Milanesenobility, and live on one flat in an old quarter of the city, instead ofin a bright and handsome street, musical with equipages, and full of theshows of life?'
In conjunction with certain friends of the signora, the count workeddiligently for the immediate restitution of the estates. He was ablyseconded by the young princess of Schyll-Weilingen,--by marriagecountess of Fohrendorf, duchess of Graatli, in central Germany, by whichtitle she passed,--an Austrian princess; she who had loved Giacomo, andwould have given all for him, and who now loved his widow. The extremeand painful difficulty was that the Signora Piaveni made no concealmentof her abhorrence of the House of Austria, and hatred of Austrian rulein Italy. The spirit of her dead husband had come to her from the grave,and warmed a frame previously indifferent to anything save his personalmerits. It had been covertly communicated to her that if she performeddue submission to the authorities, and lived for six months in goodlegal, that is to say, nonpatriotic odour, she might hope to have theestates. The duchess had obtained this mercy for her, and it was much;for Giacomo's scheme of revolt had been conceived with a subtlety ofgenius, and contrived on a scale sufficient to incense any despotic lordof such a glorious milch-cow as Lombardy. Unhappily the signora was moreinspired by the remembrance of her husband than by consideration forher children. She received disaffected persons: she subscribed her moneyostentatiously for notoriously patriotic purposes; and she who, in herfather's Como villa, had been a shy speechless girl, nothing more thanbeautiful, had become celebrated for her public letters, and the ardourof declamation against the foreigner which characterized her style. Inthe face of such facts, the estates continued to be withheld from hergovernance. Austria could do that: she could wreak her spite againstthe woman, but she respected her own law even in a conquered land: theestates were not confiscated, and not absolutely sequestrated; and,indeed, money coming from them had been sent to her for the educationof her children. It lay in unopened official envelopes, piled one uponanother, quarterly remittances, horrible as blood of slaughter in hersight. Count Serabiglione made a point of counting the packets alwayswi
thin the first five minutes of a visit to his daughter. He saidnothing, but was careful to see to the proper working of the lock ofthe cupboard where the precious deposits were kept, and sometimes inforgetfulness he carried off the key. When his daughter reclaimed it,she observed, 'Pray believe me quite as anxious as yourself to preservethese documents.' And the count answered, 'They represent the estates,and are of legal value, though the amount is small. They represent yourprotest, and the admission of your claim. They are priceless.'
In some degree, also, they compensated him for the expense he was putto in providing for his daughter's subsistence and that of her children.For there, at all events, visible before his eyes, was the value of themoney, if not the money expended. He remonstrated with Laura for leavingit more than necessarily exposed. She replied,
'My people know what that money means!' implying, of course, that no onein her house would consequently touch it. Yet it was reserved for thecount to find it gone.
The discovery was made by the astounded nobleman on the day precedingVittoria's appearance at La Scala. His daughter being absent, he hadvisited the cupboard merely to satisfy an habitual curiosity. Thecupboard was open, and had evidently been ransacked. He rang up thedomestics, and would have charged them all with having done violenceto the key, but that on reflection he considered this to be a way ofbinding faggots together, and he resolved to take them one by one, likethe threading Jesuit that he was, and so get a Judas. Laura's returnsaved him from much exercise of his peculiar skill. She, with a cool'Ebbene!' asked him how long he had expected the money to remainthere. Upon which, enraged, he accused her of devoting the money to theaccursed patriotic cause. And here they came to a curious open division.
'Be content, my father,' she said; 'the money is my husband's, and isexpended on his behalf.'
'You waste it among the people who were the cause of his ruin!' herfather retorted.
'You presume me to have returned it to the Government, possibly?'
'I charge you with tossing it to your so-called patriots.'
'Sir, if I have done that, I have done well.'
'Hear her!' cried the count to the attentive ceiling; and addressingher with an ironical 'madame,' he begged permission to inquire of herwhether haply she might be the person in the pay of Revolutionistswho was about to appear at La Scala, under the name of the SignorinaVittoria. 'For you are getting dramatic in your pose, my Laura,' headded, familiarizing the colder tone of his irony. 'You are beginning tostand easily in attitudes of defiance to your own father.'
'That I may practise how to provoke a paternal Government, you mean,'she rejoined, and was quite a match for him in dialectics.
The count chanced to allude further to the Signorina Vittoria.
'Do you know much of that lady?' she asked.
'As much as is known,' said he.
They looked at one another; the count thinking, 'I gave to this girl anexcess of brains, in my folly!'
Compelled to drop his eyes, and vexed by the tacit defeat, he pursued,'You expect great things from her?'
'Great,' said his daughter.
'Well, well,' he murmured acquiescingly, while sounding within himselffor the part to play. 'Well-yes! she may do what you expect.'
'There is not the slightest doubt of her capacity,' said his daughter,in a tone of such perfect conviction that the count was immediately andirresistibly tempted to play the part of sagacious, kindly, tolerant butforeseeing father; and in this becoming character he exposed the risksher party ran in trusting anything of weight to a woman. Not that hedecried women. Out of their sphere he did not trust them, and he simplyobjected to them when out of their sphere: the last four words beinguttered staccato.
'But we trust her to do what she has undertaken to do,' said Laura.
The count brightened prodigiously from his suspicion to a certainty; andas he was still smiling at the egregious trap his clever but unskilleddaughter had fallen into, he found himself listening incredulously toher plain additional sentence:--'She has easy command of three octaves.'
By which the allusion was transformed from politics to Art. Had Laurareserved this cunning turn a little further, yielding to the naturaltemptation to increase the shock of the antithetical battery, she wouldhave betrayed herself: but it came at the right moment: the count gaveup his arms. He told her that this Signorina Vittoria was suspected.'Whom will they not suspect!' interjected Laura. He assured her thatif a conspiracy had ripened it must fail. She was to believe that heabhorred the part of a spy or informer, but he was bound, since she wasreckless, to watch over his daughter; and also bound, that he mightbe of service to her, to earn by service to others as much power ashe could reasonably hope to obtain. Laura signified that he arguedexcellently well. In a fit of unjustified doubt of her sincerity, hecomplained, with a querulous snap:
'You have your own ideas; you have your own ideas. You think me this andthat. A man must be employed.'
'And this is to account for your occupation?' she remarked.
'Employed, I say!' the count reiterated fretfully. He was unmasking tono purpose, and felt himself as on a slope, having given his adversaryvantage.
'So that there is no choice for you, do you mean?'
The count set up a staggering affirmative, but knocked it over with itsnatural enemy as soon as his daughter had said, 'Not being for Italy,you must necessarily be against her:--I admit that to be the position!'
'No!' he cried; 'no: there is no question of "for" or "against," as youare aware. "Italy, and not Revolution": that is my motto.'
'Or, in other words, "The impossible,"' said Laura. 'A perfect motto!'
Again the count looked at her, with the remorseful thought: 'I certainlygave you too much brains.'
He smiled: 'If you could only believe it not impossible!'
'Do you really imagine that "Italy without Revolution" does not mean"Austria"?' she inquired.
She had discovered how much he, and therefore his party, suspected, andnow she had reasons for wishing him away. Not daring to show symptomsof restlessness, she offered him the chance of recovering himself onthe crutches of an explanation. He accepted the assistance, praisinghis wits for their sprightly divination, and went through a long-windedstatement of his views for the welfare of Italy, quoting his favouriteBerni frequently, and forcing the occasion for that jolly poet. Lauragave quiet attention to all, and when he was exhausted at the close,said meditatively, 'Yes. Well; you are older. It may seem to you that Ishall think as you do when I have had a similar, or the same, length ofexperience.'
This provoking reply caused her father to jump up from his chair andspin round for his hat. She rose to speed him forth.
'It may seem to me!' he kept muttering. 'It may seem to me that when adaughter gets married--addio! she is nothing but her husband.'
'Ay! ay! if it might be so!' the signora wailed out.
The count hated tears, considering them a clog to all useful machinery.He was departing, when through the open window a noise of scuffling inthe street below arrested him.
'Has it commenced?' he said, starting.
'What?' asked the signora, coolly; and made him pause.
'But-but-but!' he answered, and had the grace to spare her ears. Thethought in him was: 'But that I had some faith in my wife, and don'tadmire the devil sufficiently, I would accuse him point-blank, for, byBacchus! you are as clever as he.'
It is a point in the education of parents that they should learnto apprehend humbly the compliment of being outwitted by their ownoffspring.
Count Serabiglione leaned out of the window and saw that his horses weresafe and the coachman handy. There were two separate engagements goingon between angry twisting couples.
'Is there a habitable town in Italy?' the count exclaimed frenziedly.First he called to his coachman to drive away, next to wait as if nailedto the spot. He cursed the revolutionary spirit as the mother of vices.While he was gazing at the fray, the door behind him opened, as he knewby the rush of cool air
which struck his temples. He fancied that hisdaughter was hurrying off in obedience to a signal, and turned upon herjust as Laura was motioning to a female figure in the doorway to retire.
'Who is this?' said the count.
A veil was over the strange lady's head. She was excited, and breathedquickly. The count brought forward a chair to her, and put on his bestcourt manner. Laura caressed her, whispering, ere she replied: 'TheSignorina Vittoria Romana!--Biancolla!--Benarriva!' and numerous othernames of inventive endearment. But the count was too sharp to be thrownoff the scent. 'Aha!' he said, 'do I see her one evening before the termappointed?' and bowed profoundly. 'The Signorina Vittoria!'
She threw up her veil.
'Success is certain,' he remarked and applauded, holding one hand as asnuff-box for the fingers of the other to tap on.
'Signor Conte, you--must not praise me before you have heard me.'
'To have seen you!'
'The voice has a wider dominion, Signor Conte.'
'The fame of the signorina's beauty will soon be far wider. Was Venus acantatrice?'
She blushed, being unable to continue this sort of Mayfly-shootingdialogue, but her first charming readiness had affected the proficientsocial gentleman very pleasantly, and with fascinated eyes he hummedand buzzed about her like a moth at a lamp. Suddenly his head dived:'Nothing, nothing, signorina,' he said, brushing delicately at herdress; 'I thought it might be paint.' He smiled to reassure her, andthen he dived again, murmuring: 'It must be something sticking to thedress. Pardon me.' With that he went to the bell. 'I will ring up mydaughter's maid. Or Laura--where is Laura?'
The Signora Piaveni had walked to the window. This antiquated fussinessof the dilettante little nobleman was sickening to her.
'Probably you expect to discover a revolutionary symbol in the lines ofthe signorina's dress,' she said.
'A revolutionary symbol!--my dear! my dear!' The count reproved hisdaughter. 'Is not our signorina a pure artist, accomplishing easilythree octaves? aha! Three!' and he rubbed his hands. 'But, three goodoctaves!' he addressed Vittoria seriously and admonishingly. 'It is afortune-millions! It is precisely the very grandest heritage! It is anarmy!'
'I trust that it may be!' said Vittoria, with so deep and earnest a ringof her voice that the count himself, malicious as his ejaculationshad been, was astonished. At that instant Laura cried from the window:'These horses will go mad.'
The exclamation had the desired effect.
'Eh?--pardon me, signorina,' said the count, moving half-way to thewindow, and then askant for his hat. The clatter of the horses' hoofssent him dashing through the doorway, at which place his daughterstood with his hat extended. He thanked and blessed her for the kindlyattention, and in terror lest the signorina should think evil of himas 'one of the generation of the hasty,' he said, 'Were it anythingbut horses! anything but horses! one's horses!--ha!' The audible hoofscalled him off. He kissed the tips of his fingers, and tripped out.
The signora stepped rapidly to the window, and leaning there, crieda word to the coachman, who signalled perfect comprehension, andimmediately the count's horses were on their hind-legs, chafing andpulling to right and left, and the street was tumultuous with them. Sheflung down the window, seized Vittoria's cheeks in her two hands, andpressed the head upon her bosom. 'He will not disturb us again,' shesaid, in quite a new tone, sliding her hands from the cheeks to theshoulders and along the arms to the fingers'-ends, which they clutchedlovingly. 'He is of the old school, friend of my heart! and besides, hehas but two pairs of horses, and one he keeps in Vienna. We live inthe hope that our masters will pay us better! Tell me! you are in goodhealth? All is well with you? Will they have to put paint on her softcheeks to-morrow? Little, if they hold the colour as full as now? MySandra! amica! should I have been jealous if Giacomo had known you? Onmy soul, I cannot guess! But, you love what he loved. He seems to livefor me when they are talking of Italy, and you send your eyes forwardas if you saw the country free. God help me! how I have been containingmyself for the last hour and a half!'
The signora dropped in a seat and laughed a languid laugh.
'The little ones? I will ring for them. Assunta shall bring them down intheir night-gowns if they are undressed; and we will muffle the windows,for my little man will be wanting his song; and did you not promise himthe great one which is to raise Italy-his mother, from the dead? Do youremember our little fellow's eyes as he tried to see the picture? I fearI force him too much, and there's no need-not a bit.'
The time was exciting, and the signora spoke excitedly. Messing andReggio were in arms. South Italy had given the open signal. It was nearupon the hour of the unmasking of the great Lombard conspiracy, andVittoria, standing there, was the beacon-light of it. Her presencefilled Laura with transports of exultation; and shy of displayingit, and of the theme itself, she let her tongue run on, and satisfiedherself by smoothing the hand of the brave girl on her chin, andplucking with little loving tugs at her skirts. In doing this shesuddenly gave a cry, as if stung.
'You carry pins,' she said. And inspecting the skirts more closely, 'Youhave a careless maid in that creature Giacinta; she lets paper stick toyour dress. What is this?'
Vittoria turned her head, and gathered up her dress to see.
'Pinned with the butterfly!' Laura spoke under her breath.
Vittoria asked what it meant.
'Nothing--nothing,' said her friend, and rose, pulling her eagerlytoward the lamp.
A small bronze butterfly secured a square piece of paper with clippedcorners to her dress. Two words were written on it:--
'SEI SOSPETTA.'