CHAPTER XIII
THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO

There was no concealment as to Laura’s object in making request for the services of Beppo. She herself knew it to be obvious that she intended to probe and cross-examine the man, and in her wilfulness she chose to be obtuse to opinion. She did not even blush to lean a secret ear above the stairs that she might judge, by the tones of Vittoria’s voice upon her giving Beppo the order to wait, whether she was at the same time conveying a hint for guardedness. But Vittoria said not a word: it was Ammiani who gave the order. ‘I am despicable in distrusting her for a single second,’ said Laura. That did not the less encourage her to question Beppo rigorously forthwith; and as she was not to be deceived by an Italian’s affectation of simplicity, she let him answer two or three times like a plain fool, and then abruptly accused him of standing prepared with these answers. Beppo, within his own bosom, immediately ascribed to his sagacious instinct the mere spirit of opposition and dislike to serve any one save his own young mistress which had caused him to irritate the signora and be on his guard. He proffered a candid admission of the truth of the charge; adding, that he stood likewise prepared with an unlimited number of statements. ‘Questions, illustrious signora, invariably put me on the defensive, and seem to cry for a return thrust; and this I account for by the fact that my mother—the blessed little woman now among the Saints!—was questioned, brows and heels, by a ferruginously—faced old judge at the momentous period when she carried me. So that, a question—and I show point; but ask me for a statement, and, ah, signora!’ Beppo delivered a sweep of the arm, as to indicate the spontaneous flow of his tongue.

‘I think,’ said Laura, ‘you have been a soldier, and a serving-man.’

‘And a scene-shifter, most noble signora, at La Scala.’

‘You accompanied the Signor Mertyrio to England when he was wounded?’

‘I did.’

‘And there you beheld the Signorina Vittoria, who was then bearing the name of Emilia Belloni?’

‘Which name she changed on her arrival in Italy, illustrious signora, for that of Vittoria Campa—“sull’ campo dells gloria”—ah! ah!—her own name being an attraction to the blow-flies in her own country. All this is true.’

‘It should be a comfort to you! The Signor Mertyrio…’

Beppo writhed his person at the continuance of the questionings, and obtaining a pause, he rushed into his statement: ‘The Signor Mertyrio was well, and on the point of visiting Italy, and quitting the wave-embraced island of fog, of beer, of moist winds, and much money, and much kindness, where great hearts grew. The signorina corresponded with him, and with him only.’

‘You know that, and will swear to it?’ Laura exclaimed.

Beppo thereby receiving the cue he had commenced beating for, swore to its truth profoundly, and straightway directed his statement to prove that his mistress had not been politically (or amorously, if the suspicion aimed at her in those softer regions) indiscreet or blameable in any of her actions. The signorina, he said, never went out from her abode without the companionship of her meritorious mother and his own most humble attendance. He, Beppo, had a master and a mistress, the Signor Mertyrio and the Signorina Vittoria. She saw no foreigners: though—a curious thing!—he had seen her when the English language was talked in her neighbourhood; and she had a love for that language: it made her face play in smiles like an infant’s after it has had suck and is full;—the sort of look you perceive when one is dreaming and hears music. She did not speak to foreigners. She did not care to go to foreign cities, but loved Milan, and lived in it free and happy as an earwig in a ripe apricot. The circumvallation of Milan gave her elbow-room enough, owing to the absence of forts all round—‘which knock one’s funny-bone in Verona, signora.’ Beppo presented a pure smile upon a simple bow for acceptance. ‘The air of Milan,’ he went on, with less confidence under Laura’s steady gaze, and therefore more forcing of his candour—‘the sweet air of Milan gave her a deep chestful, so that she could hold her note as long as five lengths of a fiddle-bow:—by the body of Sant’ Ambrogio, it was true!’ Beppo stretched out his arm, and chopped his hand edgeways five testificatory times on the shoulder-ridge. ‘Ay, a hawk might fly from St. Luke’s head (on the Duomo) to the stone on San Primo over Como, while the signorina held on her note! You listened, you gasped—you thought of a poet in his dungeon, and suddenly, behold, his chains are struck off!—you thought of a gold-shelled tortoise making his pilgrimage to a beatific shrine!—you thought—you knew not what you thought!’

Here Beppo sank into a short silence of ecstasy, and wakening from it, as with an ardent liveliness: ‘The signora has heard her sing? How to describe it! Tomorrow night will be a feast for Milan.’

‘You think that the dilettanti of Milan will have a delight to-morrow night?’ said Laura; but seeing that the man’s keen ear had caught note of the ironic reptile under the flower, and unwilling to lose further time, she interdicted his reply.

‘Beppo, my good friend, you are a complete Italian—you waste your cleverness. You will gratify me by remembering that I am your countrywoman. I have already done you a similar favour by allowing you to air your utmost ingenuity. The reflection that it has been to no purpose will neither scare you nor instruct you. Of that I am quite assured. I speak solely to suit the present occasion. Now, don’t seek to elude me. If you are a snake with friends as well as enemies, you are nothing but a snake. I ask you—you are not compelled to answer, but I forbid you to lie—has your mistress seen, or conversed and had correspondence with any one receiving the Tedeschi’s gold, man or woman? Can any one, man or woman, call her a traitress?’

‘Not twice!’ thundered Beppo, with a furrowed red forehead.

There was a noble look about the fellow as he stood with stiff legs in a posture, frowning—theatrical, but noble also; partly the look of a Figaro defending his honour in extremity, yet much like a statue of a French Marshal of the Empire.

‘That will do,’ said Laura, rising. She was about to leave him, when the Duchess of Graatli’s chasseur was ushered in, bearing a missive from Amalia, her friend. She opened it and read:—

‘BEST BELOVED,—Am I soon to be reminded bitterly that there is a river of steel between my heart and me?

‘Fail not in coming to-night. Your new Bulbul is in danger. The silly thing must have been reading Roman history. Say not no! It intoxicates you all. I watch over her for my Laura’s sake: a thousand kisses I shower on you, dark delicious soul that you are! Are you not my pine-grove leading to the evening star? Come, that we may consult how to spirit her away during her season of peril. Gulfs do not close over little female madcaps, my Laura; so we must not let her take the leap. Enter the salle when you arrive: pass down it once and return upon your steps; then to my boudoir. My maid Aennchen will conduct you. Addio. Tell this messenger that you come. Laura mine, I am for ever thy

‘AMALIA.’

Laura signalled to the chasseur that her answer was affirmative. As he was retiring, his black-plumed hat struck against Beppo, who thrust him aside and gave the hat a dexterous kick, all the while keeping a decorous front toward the signora. She stood meditating. The enraged chasseur mumbled a word or two for Beppo’s ear, in execrable Italian, and went. Beppo then commenced bowing half toward the doorway, and tried to shoot through, out of sight and away, in a final droop of excessive servility, but the signora stopped him, telling him to consider himself her servant until the morning; at which he manifested a surprising readiness, indicative of nothing short of personal devotion, and remained for two minutes after she had quitted the room. So much time having elapsed, he ran bounding down the stairs and found the hall-door locked, and that he was a prisoner during the signora’s pleasure. The discovery that he was mastered by superior cunning, instead of disconcerting, quieted him wonderfully; so he put by the resources of his ingenuity for the next opportunity, and returned stealthily to his starting-point, where the signora found him awaiting her with composure. The man was in mortal terror lest he might be held guilty of a trust betrayed, in leaving his mistress for an hour, even in obedience to her command, at this crisis: but it was not in his nature to state the case openly to the signora, whom he knew to be his mistress’s friend, or to think of practising other than shrewd evasion to accomplish his duty and satisfy his conscience.

Laura said, without smiling, ‘The street-door opens with a key,’ and she placed the key in his hand, also her fan to carry. Once out of the house, she was sure that he would not forsake his immediate charge of the fan: she walked on, heavily veiled, confident of his following. The Duchess of Graatli’s house neighboured the Corso Francesco; numerous carriages were disburdening their freights of fair guests, and now and then an Austrian officer in full uniform ran up the steps, glittering under the lamps. ‘I go in among them,’ thought Laura. It rejoiced her that she had come on foot. Forgetting Beppo, and her black fan, as no Italian woman would have done but she who paced in an acute quivering of the anguish of hopeless remembrances and hopeless thirst of vengeance, she suffered herself to be conducted in the midst of the guests, and shuddered like one who has taken a fever-chill as she fulfilled the duchess’s directions; she passed down the length of the saloon, through a light of visages that were not human to her sensations.