CHAPTER X
Bona sat amongst her maidens. They were all busy as spiders upon a loom of tapestry, spinning a symbolic web. The subject was as edifying as their talk over it was free. Their lips and fingers were perpetually at odds, weaving reputations and pulling them to pieces. Bona herself said little; but abstraction gave some indulgence to the smile with which she listened, or seemed to.
'Whither do her thoughts travel?' whispered one girl of another.
'Hush!' was the answer. 'Along the Piedmont Road with her lord, of course. What else would you?'
The first giggled.
'Nothing, indeed, if it left a chance for poor little me. But, alack! I fear her charity stops nearer home.'
'What then, insignificance? Would your presumption fly at an angel?'
'Yes, indeed, though it got a peck for its pains. (Mark the Caprona's ear pricked our way! She knows we are on the eternal subject.) Heigho! it will be something to share in this promised commonwealth of love, at least.'
She spoke loud enough for the little Catherine Sforza, sitting by her adopted mother, to hear her.
'Ehi, Carlina,' cried that pert youngster: 'What share do you expect for your small part?'
'I thought of Messer Bembo, Madonna,' answered Carlina demurely. They crowed her down with enormous laughter.
'Nay, child,' said Catherine: 'there is to be no talk of exclusiveness in this Commonwealth. We are all to take alike—Mamma, and I, and the Countess of Casa Caprona, and whoever else subscribes to the Purification. For my part I shall be content with becoming very good; and I have hopes of myself. See the reformation in our dear Countess; and she was in his company but a day or two.'
'Peace, thou naughtiness!' cried Bona; while Beatrice's eyes burned dull fire; and a girl, one who worked near her, a soft and endearing little piety, looked up and choked in a panic, 'O Madonna!'
Catherine mimicked her:—
'O Biasia! Is the subject too tender for thy conscience? Alas, dear! but if thy only hope is in this Commonwealth? Angels are not monogamous.'
Biasia blushed like a poppy; yet managed to stammer amidst the laughter: 'It is only that he,—that the subject, seems to me too sacred. He preaches heavenly love—the brotherhood of souls—in all else, one man one maid.'
Catherine very gravely got upon a stool, and paraphrased Messer Bembo, voice and manner:—
'I kiss thee, kind Madonna, for thine exposition. A man must put a fence about his desires, would he be happy. A sweet mate, a cot, beehives and a garden—he shall find all love's epitome in these. None can possess the world but in the abstract—a plea for universal brotherhood. What doth it profit me to own a palace, and live for all my needs' content in one room of it? Go to and join, and leave superfluous woman to the preacher.'
Some tittered, some applauded; Biasia hung her head, and would say no more. Bona cried, 'Come down, thou wickedness!' but indulgently, as if she half-dreaded attracting to herself the flicker of the little forked tongue.
'O!' cried Catherine, 'I grant you that, with an angel, the manner spices the lesson. I will tell you, girls, how he rebuked me yesterday on this same legend of reciprocity. "How could you take sport," says he, "of witnessing that poor Montano's punishment?" "Why, very well," says I, "seeing he was a man, and therefore my natural enemy." "How is man so?" says he. "He makes me bear his children for him," says I. "But I suppose he will be made to suffer his share of the toil in this new Commonwealth of love." "You talk like a child," he says. "Then," says I, "I will sing like a woman," and I extemporised—very clever, you will admit.'
She pinched up her skirts, and put out a little foot, and chirruped, in no voice at all, but with a sauce of impudence:—
'"Love is give and take,"
says he,
"Every gander knows—
Wear the prickle for my sake;
For thine, I'll wear the rose."
"Grazie, kind and true,"
says I,
"For that noble dower—
Only, between me and you,
I should like the flower."
"And hast thou not it?" cries St. Bernardo, interrupting me; and, would you believe it, swinging round his lute, his lips and his finger-tips join issue in the prettiest nonsense ever conceived for a poor wife's fooling. Wait, and I will recall it.'
She had the quickest wit and memory, and in a moment was chaunting:—
'"Whence did our bird-soft baby come?
How learned to prattle of this for home?
Some sleepy nurse-angel let her stray,
And she found herself in the world one day.
She heard nurse calling, and further fled:
She hid herself in our cabbage bed.
There we came on her fast asleep,
What could we do but take and keep,
Carry her in and up the stair?
She would have died of cold out there.
She woke at once in a little fright;
But Love beckoned her from the light.
Lure we had lit, for dear love fain;
She had seen it shine through the window pane.
Lure we had kindled of flame and bliss,
To catch such a little ghost-moth as this.
Ah, me! it shrivelled her pretty wing.
Here she must stay, poor thing, poor thing!"'
She ended: 'Faith, St. Charming's lips make that daintiest setting to his fancies, that I could have kissed 'em while he improved his song with a homily' (she mimicked again the boy's manner, comically emphasised). '"Why," saith he, "would you grudge yourself that poignant privilege of your sex? would ye share the agony and halve the gain? What gift so careless in all the world makes such sweet possession? Furs, gowns, and trinkets pall; perishable things grow less by use; the diamond suffers by its larger peer. Only the gift of love, the wee babe, takes new delight of time; renews woman's best through herself; is a perpetual novelty, spring all the year round, flowers fresh burgeoning through faded blooms. To be sole warden of the quickening soul ye bore—you, you! to see the lamb-like heaven of its eyes cuddling to your bosom's fold—all thine, save the spent heat that cast it! O, rather be the mould than the turbulent metal it shapes! Go to, and thank God for labours yielding such reward. Go to, and be the mother of saints." Whereat I curtsied, and "Thank you, sir," says I, "for the offer, but my bed's already laid for me in Rome," and then'
What more she might have quoted or invented none might say, for at the moment a wild figure burst into the chamber, and ran to its mistress, and entreated her with lips and hands.
'Give me thy gage—quick! There is one starves in the "Hermit's Cell," and they will not let me pass to him without. Thou art the Duke, thou art the Duke now. Give it me, in mercy, and avert God's vengeance from this wicked house!'
Bona had arisen, pale as death, pity and anguish pleading in her eyes.
'Alas! What say'st thou? Thou, not I, art the Duke.'
'Give it me,' demanded Bembo feverishly. 'Nay, quibble not, while he gasps out his agony—a monk—hear'st thou? A monk!'
She temporised a moment in her pain.
'There are black sheep in those flocks.'
'God forgive thee!'
'Alas! thou wilt not. Indeed I have no talisman will open doors that my lord has shut.'
Beatrice, intent, with veiled eyes, from her place, bestirred herself with an indolent smile.
'Madonna forgets. Love laughs at locksmiths.'
The two women faced one another a minute. Some subtle emotion of antagonism, already born, waxed into a larger consciousness between them.
'How, Countess?' said Bona quietly.
'Madonna wears her bethrothal ring—a very passepartout. It is the talisman will serve her with monks and saints alike.'
A little flush mantled to the Duchess's brow. Standing erect a moment she slipped the ring from her finger, and held it out to Bernardo.
'It should be the pledge through love of Charity. Take it, in my lord's good name, whose jealous representative I remain. And when thou return'st it, may it be sanctified of new justice, child, against the prick of envy and slander and the spite of venomous tongues.'
She turned away stately and resumed her needle as Bernardo, with a cry of thanks, ran from the room. A minute or two later he appeared before the sentry on the ramparts and flourished his token. To his surprise the man hardly glanced at it as he stepped aside to let him pass. He thought on this with some shapeless foreboding, as he leapt like a chamois down the steeps of the tower, the food, which he had snatched up, in his hands. God pity him and his awakening! There are emotions too sacred for minuting. Let it suffice that Jacopo had proved too faithful a prophylactic to superstition. The wretched monk had not been allowed to justify his own prediction by dying of starvation. In that last interval, between the Parablist's going and coming, his throat had been cut.
A minute later Bernardo leapt like a madman from the tower. His face was ashy, his hands trembling. At the foot of the curtain he stumbled over a poor patch, prostrate and moaning.
'I am thy Fool, and I shall never make thee smile again.'
All quivering and unstrung, he threw himself on his knees by Cicada's side.
'Up!' he screamed, 'up! Get you out of this Sodom ere the Lord destroy it!'
The Fool bestirred himself, raising eyes full of a sombre, eager questioning.
'I am forgiven?' he gasped; but Bernardo only cried frenziedly, 'Up! up!'