Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (223 page)

“Aye, Lady; you will say that is pretty good authority.

“Death! and in the Marchese’s family!” exclaimed Ellena.

“Yes, Signora, I had it from his own servant. He was passing by the garden-gate just as I happened to be speaking to the maccaroni-man. — But you are ill, Lady!” —

“I am very well, if you will but proceed,” replied Ellena, faintly, while her eyes were fixed upon Beatrice, as if they only had power to enforce her meaning.

“‘Well, dame,’ he says to me, ‘I have not seen you of a long time.’ ‘No,’ says I, ‘that is a great grievance truly! for old women now-a-days are not much thought of; out of sight out of mind with them, now-a-days!” —

“I beseech you to the purpose,” interrupted Ellena. “Whose death did he announce?” She had not courage to pronounce Vivaldi’s name.

“You shall hear, Signora. I saw he looked in a sort of a bustle, so I asked him how all did at the Palazzo: so he answers, ‘Bad enough, Signora Beatrice, have not you heard?’ ‘Heard,’ says I; ‘what should I have heard?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘of what has just happened in our family.”

“O heavens!” exclaimed Ellena, “he is dead! Vivaldi is dead!”

“You shall hear, Signora,” continued Beatrice.

“Be brief!” said Ellena, “answer me simply yes or no.”

“I cannot, till I come to the right place, Signora; if you will but have a little patience, you shall hear all. But if you fluster me so, you will put me quite out.”

“Grant me patience!” said Ellena, endeavouring to calm her spirits.

“With that, Signora, I asked him to walk in and rest himself, and tell me all about it. He answered, he was in a great hurry, and could not stay a moment, and a great deal of that sort; but I, knowing that whatever happened in that family, Signora, was something to you, would not let him go off so easily; and so, when I asked him to refresh himself with a glass of lemon-ice, he forgot all his business in a minute, and we had a long chat.”

And Beatrice might now have continued her circumlocution, perhaps as long as she had pleased, for Ellena had lost all power to urge inquiry, and was scarcely sensible of what was said. She neither spoke, nor shed a tear; the one image that possessed her fancy, the image of Vivaldi dead seemed to hold all her faculties, as by a spell.

“So when I asked him,” added Beatrice, “again what had happened, he was ready enough to tell all about it. ‘It is near a month ago,’ said he, ‘since she was first taken; the Marchesa had been” —

“The Marchesa!” repeated Ellena, with whom that one word had dissolved the spell of terror— “the Marchesa!”

“Yes Signora, to be sure. Who else did I say it was!”

“Go on, Beatrice; the Marchesa?” —

“What makes you look so glad all of a sudden, Signora? I thought just now you was very sorry about it. What! I warrant you was thinking about my young lord, Vivaldi.”

“Proceed,” said Ellena.

“Well!” added Beatrice, ‘It was about a month ago that the Marchesa was first taken,’ continued the varlet. ‘She had seemed poorly a long time, but it was from a conversazione at the di Voglio palazzo, that she came home so ill. It is supposed she had been long in a bad state of health, but nobody thought her so near her end, till the doctors were called together; and then matters looked very bad indeed. They found out that she had been dying, or as good, for many years, though nobody else had suspected it, and the Marchesa’s own physician was blamed for not finding it out before. But he,’ added the rogue, ‘had a regard for my lady. He was very obstinate, too, for he kept saying almost to the last, there was no danger, when every body else saw how it was going. The other doctors soon made their words good, and my lady died.”

“And her son” — said Ellena, “was he with the Marchesa when she expired?”

“What, Signor Vivaldi, lady? No, the Signor was not there.”

“That is very extraordinary!” observed Ellena with emotion. “Did the servant mention him?”

“Yes, Signora; he said what a sad thing it was that he should be out of the way at that time, and nobody know where!”

“Are his family then ignorant where he is?” asked Ellena, with increased emotion.

“To be sure they are, lady, and have been for these many weeks. They have heard nothing at all of the Signor, or one Paulo Mendrico, his servant, though the Marchesa’s people have been riding post after them from one end of the kingdom to the other all the time!”

Shocked with the conviction of a circumstance, which, till lately she scarcely believed was possible, the imprisonment of Vivaldi in the Inquisition, Ellena lost for a while all power of further inquiry; but Beatrice proceeded.

“The Lady Marchesa seemed to lay something much to heart, as the man told me, and often inquired for Signor Vincentio.”

“The Marchesa you are sure then was ignorant where he was?” said Ellena, with now astonishment and perplexity as to the person who, after betraying him into the Inquisition, could yet have suffered her, though arrested at the same time, to escape.

“Yes, Signora, for she wanted sadly to see him. And when she was dying, she sent for her Confessor, one father Schedoni, I think they call him, and” —

“What of him?” said Ellena incautiously.

“Nothing, Signora, for he could not be found.”

“Not be found!” repeated Ellena.

“No, Signora, not just then; he was Confessor, I warrant, to other people beside the Marchesa, and I dare say they had sins enough to confess, so he could not get away in a hurry.”

Ellena recollected herself sufficiently to ask no further of Schedoni; and, when she considered the probable cause of Vivaldi’s arrest, she was again consoled by a belief that he had not fallen into the power of real officials, since the comrades of the men who had arrested him, had proved themselves otherwise; and she thought it highly probable, that, while undiscovered by his family, he had been, and was still engaged in searching for the place of her confinement.

“But I was saying,” proceeded Beatrice, “what a bustle there was when my lady, the Marchesa was dying. As this father Schedoni was not to be found, another Confessor was sent for, and shut up with her for a long while indeed! And then my Lord Marchese was called in, and there seemed to be a deal going forward, for my Lord was heard every now and then by the attendants in the anti-chamber, talking loud, and sometimes my Lady Marchesa’s voice was heard too, though she was so ill! At last all was silent, and after some time my Lord came out of the room, and he seemed very much flustered, they say, that is, very angry and yet very sorrowful. But the Confessor remained with my Lady for a long while after; and, when he departed, my Lady appeared more unhappy than ever. She lived all that night and part of the next day, and something seemed to lie very heavy at her heart, for she sometimes wept, but oftener groaned, and would look so, that it was piteous to see her. She frequently asked for the Marchese, and when he came, the attendants were sent away, and they held long conferences by themselves. The Confessor also was sent for again, just at the last, and they were all shut up together. After this, my Lady appeared more easy in her mind, and not long after she died.”

Ellena, who had attended closely to this little narrative, was prevented for the present from asking the few questions which it had suggested, by the entrance of Olivia, who, on perceiving a stranger, was retiring, but Ellena, not considering these inquiries as important, prevailed with the nun to take a chair at the embroidery frame she had lately quitted.

After conversing for a few moments with Olivia, she returned to a consideration of her own interests. The absence of Schedoni still appeared to her as something more than accidental; and, though she could not urge any inquiry with Beatrice, concerning the monk of the Spirito Santo, she ventured to ask whether she had lately seen the stranger, who had restored her to Altieri, for Beatrice knew him only in the character of Ellena’s deliverer.

“No, Signora,” replied Beatrice rather sharply, “I have never seen his face since he attended you to the villa, though for that matter, I did not see much of it there; and then how he contrived to let himself out of the house that night without my seeing him, I cannot divine, though I have thought of it, often enough since. I am sure he need not to have been ashamed to have shewn his face to me, for I should only have blessed him for bringing you safe home again!”

Ellena was somewhat surprized to find that Beatrice had noticed a circumstance apparently so trivial, and replied, that she had herself opened the door for her protector.

While Beatrice spoke, Olivia raising her eyes from the embroidery, had fixed them upon the old servant, who respectfully withdrew her’s; but, when the nun was again engaged on her work, she resumed her observation. Ellena fancied she perceived something extraordinary in this mutual examination, although the curiosity of strangers towards each other might have accounted for it.

Beatrice then received directions from Ellena as to some drawings, which she wished to have sent to the convent, and when the servant spoke in reply, Olivia again raised her eyes, and fixed them on her face with intense curiosity.

“I certainly ought to know that voice,” said the nun with great emotion, “though I dare not judge from your features. Is it, — can it be possible! — is it Beatrice Olca, to whom I speak? So many years have passed” —

Beatrice with equal surprize answered, “It is, Signora; you are right in my name. But, lady, who are you that know me?”

While she earnestly regarded Olivia, there was an expression of dismay in her look, which increased Ellena’s perplexity. The nun’s complexion varied every instant, and her words failed when she attempted to speak. Beatrice meanwhile exclaimed, “My eyes deceive me! yet there is a strange likeness. Santa della Pieta! how it has fluttered me! my heart beats still — you are so like her, lady, yet you are very different too.”

Olivia, whose regards were now entirely fixed upon Ellena, said in a voice that was scarcely articulate, while her whole frame seemed sinking beneath some irresistible feeling, “Tell me, Beatrice, I conjure you, quickly say, who is this?” — She pointed to Ellena, and the sentence died on her lips.

Beatrice, wholly occupied by interests of her own, gave no reply, but exclaimed, “It is in truth the Lady Olivia! It is herself! In the name of all that is sacred, how came you here? O! how glad you must have been to find one another out!” She looked, still gasping with astonishment, at Olivia, while Ellena, unheard, repeatedly inquired the meaning of her words, and in the next moment found herself pressed to the bosom of the nun, who seemed better to have understood them, and who weeping, trembling, and almost fainting, held her there in silence.

Ellena, after some moments had thus passed, requested an explanation of what she witnessed, and Beatrice at the same time demanded the cause of all this emotion. “For can it be that you did not know one another?” she added.

“What new discovery is this?” said Ellena, fearfully to the nun. “It is but lately that I have found my father! O tell me by what tender name I am to call you?”

“Your father!” exclaimed Olivia.

“Your father, lady!” echoed Beatrice.

Ellena, betrayed by strong emotion into this premature mention of Schedoni, was embarrassed and remained silent.

“No, my child!” said Olivia, softening from amazement into tones of ineffable sorrow, while she again pressed Ellena to her heart— “No! — thy father is in the grave!”

Ellena no longer returned her caresses; surprize and doubt suspended every tender emotion; she gazed upon Olivia with an intenseness that partook of wildness. At length she said slowly— “It is my mother, then, whom I see! When will these discoveries end!”

“It is your mother!” replied Olivia solemnly, “a mother’s blessing rests with you!”

The nun endeavoured to soothe the agitated spirits of Ellena, though she was herself nearly overwhelmed by the various and acute feelings this disclosure occasioned: For a considerable time they were unable to speak but in short sentences of affectionate exclamation, but joy was evidently a more predominant feeling with the parent than with the child. When, however, Ellena could weep, she became more tranquil, and by degrees was sensible of a degree of happiness, such as she had perhaps never experienced.

Meanwhile Beatrice seemed lost in amazement mingled with fear. She expressed no pleasure, notwithstanding the the joy she witnessed, but was uniformly grave and observant.

Olivia, when she recovered some degree of composure, inquired for her sister Bianchi. The silence and sudden dejection of Ellena indicated the truth. On this mention of her late mistress, Beatrice recovered the use of speech.

“Alas! lady,” said the old servant, “she is now where I believed you were! and I should as soon have expected to see my dear mistress here as yourself!”

Olivia, though affected by this intelligence, did not feel it with the acuteness she would have done probably at any other moment. After she had indulged her fears, she added, that from the unusual silence of Bianchi, she had suspected the truth, and particularly since not any answer had been returned to the letter she had sent to Altieri upon her arrival at the Santa della Pieta.

“Alas!” said Beatrice, “I wonder much my lady abbess failed to tell you the sad news, for she knew it too well! — My dear mistress is buried in the church here! as for the letter, I have brought it with me for Signora Ellena to open.”