Signor Fortini judged rightly, when he said that he thought it probable that the Marchese Lamberto had not quitted his library, from the time when he had left him there, after the conversation, in which the Marchese had avowed his purpose with regard to La Bianca.
The shrewd lawyer had well understood, that the final decision with regard to such a purpose, and the definite announcement of it, which the Marchese had made to him, his lawyer, were not likely to dispose such a man to meet the eyes of his fellow-citizens. Had Fortini known that the Marchese had been made aware of the purposed excursion of his nephew with the singer—as the reader knows that he had been by the officious meddling of the Conte Leandro,—it might have seemed strange that he should have chosen just that day and hour for the declaration of his intention. Was it that he hastened to acquire such an authority over Bianca, as might enable him to put an end to any such escapades for the future? Was it that he was infatuated to that degree, that he feared, that if he did not make haste to secure the prize, it might be taken from him by his nephew?
However this might have been, the overt step he had taken had certainly not had the effect of tranquillizing his mind. The hours of that day, since the lawyer left him, had been passed in the most miserable manner by him.
The servants had all learned, that there was something very decidedly wrong with their master. The man who usually attended on him personally, surprised at his master spending the day in a manner so unusual with him, had made various excuses to enter the library two or three times in the course of the day. Each time he had found the Marchese, instead of being busily employed, as was usual with him, when in his library, either sitting in his easy-chair with his hands before him, and his head hanging on his breast, doing absolutely nothing; or else pacing up and down the room.
As the afternoon went on, and the Marchese still did not go out, his valet, really uneasy about him, found the means of watching him without entering the room. Again and again he saw him rise from his chair and, after two or three turns across the room, return to it. Often he went to the window, and looked out, as if expecting something. Three or four times he observed him start violently at the sound of a door banging in some other part of the palace.
Once in the course of the afternoon the servant had had a genuine excuse for entering the room. The Conte Leandro had called, and asked if the Marchese was at home. He had not seen the Marchese Ludovico in the course of the day, and was curious to find out what had been the result of the eavesdropping that he had retailed to the Marchese Lamberto. That it had not availed to induce the Marchese to interfere in any way to put a stop to the excursion, the Conte Leandro had the means of knowing, as will presently appear. But his curiosity was doomed to remain unsatisfied. The Marchese had replied with a savage ill-humour, that the old servant had never seen in his master before, that he did not want to see the Conte, leaving the domestic to modify the harshness of the reply as he might.
When, however, some hours later, Signor Fortini came to the door, and despite what the servants told him of the state their master was in, and of his refusal to see the Conte Leandro, insisted on being announced, the Marchese admitted him.
The first thought that flashed through the lawyer's brain, when he came into the presence of his old friend and client, was a profound sense of self-congratulation at his own freedom from all connection with womankind.
His own experience of married life, essayed in early years and happily brought to a conclusion after a probation of a very short time, had, as has been hinted, not been a happy one. He had very deeply felt; some five-and-forty years ago, that nothing in the Signora Fortini's life had become her like the leaving of it. And during all those years of widowhood, the remembrance of that first burning of his fingers had sufficed to make the old gentleman a consistent misogynist.
"Ah, here is another specimen of women's work," he thought to himself, as he observed the utter wretchedness of the Marchese's appearance, and the traces in him of a day spent in misery. "And he, too, who had escaped for fifty years! If I had avoided the springes for fifty years, I don't think I should have been caught at last. Maybe, it is all the worse for coming to a man so late. Now here is this man, who had everything the world could give to make his happiness, wrecked, ruined, destroyed, blasted by the sight of a painted piece of woman's flesh, and the lure of a pair of devil-instructed eyes. And he knows that it is ruin. He knows which is the evil, and which the good, and yet is so besotted, that he has not the power to take the one and leave the other. Is not the sight of the unhappy wretch, as he sits cowering there, afraid, evidently afraid to meet my eye, a warning and a caution?"
And, in truth, the appearance of the Marchese might have been held, to justify these reflections of the lawyer, who was right in supposing that no tidings of what had happened had reached the Marchese since he had parted from him after their interview that morning. Attributing, therefore, the state of utter moral prostration, mixed with a kind of restless nervous agitation, in which he found him, to the consciousness of the terrible results he was about to bring upon himself by the folly he had decided on committing, the lawyer could not prevent the thought occurring to him that were it not for the dreadful circumstances that seemed to bring home the suspicion of murder to the Marchese Ludovico, the tidings he brought of the death of the unfortunate woman would be, if not a relief at the moment, yet the most fortunate exit for the Marchese from the position he had made for himself.
"Good-evening, Signor Giovacchino. You have come, of course, to ask whether the representations you made to me this morning have availed to induce me to waver in the purpose I announced to you," said the Marchese, scarcely looking up so as to meet the eye of the lawyer.
"Signor Marchese," returned Fortini, "it is my turn this time to communicate to you intelligence which will strike you, I fear, to the full as painfully as I was struck by what you told me this morning." The Marchese started; and the lawyer observed that the start seemed to continue and propagate itself, as it were, into a tremor, that ran through all his person, as he said, with chattering teeth: "What do you mean? Has anything happened?—anything—out of the common way, eh?—eh?—what—what is it?"
"That has happened, Signor Marchese, which makes all further consideration of the step you confided to me your intention of taking this morning unnecessary. The lady, whom you purposed to make your wife, is no more."
"No more—how no more?—what—what is it you mean?" said the Marchese, evidently terribly shocked, as was manifested by the tremor and shivering which seized him yet more violently than before; yet still without looking up so as to meet the lawyer's eye.
"She is dead, Signor Marchese," said the lawyer, looking at him curiously.
"Dead—La Bianca dead! I don't believe it. It is some scheme for frustrating the purpose you disapproved of—some plan managed between you and my nephew. You have sent her away, and want to persuade me that she is dead."
"Your mind is unhinged by the shock of my intelligence, Signor Marchese—naturally enough—or such an absurd notion would not have occurred to you. I have seen the dead body of Bianca Lalli. It is now in the custody of the police," said the lawyer, with slow gravity.
"The police!" cried the Marchese, shooting a momentary glance up into the lawyer's face.
"Necessarily so; for, Signor Marchese, the unhappy—the miserable truth is that a foul murder has been committed. The girl was murdered in the Pineta this morning."
"Murdered! Gracious heaven! Murdered—but why murdered? Why may she not have died by a natural death?—that is—I mean—of course I mean, if there were no evident marks of violence on the body."
The lawyer paused a minute, as if some cause of perplexity had been suggested to him by the words of the Marchese, before he replied,—"There were, in truth, no marks of evident violence on the body, or, at least, none such as an unskilled eye would observe on a very superficial examination. But all that will be ascertained at the medical examination, which will take place to-morrow morning. But I think it can hardly be doubted that the death was not a natural one," said the lawyer, shaking his head gravely.
"And the Marchese Ludovico?" asked the Marchese, rather strangely, as it struck the lawyer, seeing that nothing had as yet been said to connect the young Marchese with the catastrophe, and he was not aware of the fact that the Marchese knew of his nephew's excursion to the Pineta.
"That, alas! is the worst part of the bad story—we, at least, here in Ravenna are perhaps excusable in thinking it the worst. The fact is, Signor Marchese, that this death took place under circumstances which seem to leave no doubt that the deed was done by the hand of the Marchese Ludovico."
"The hand of the Marchese Ludovico! Gracious heaven! But that is nonsense, Signor Fortini. No doubt? How can there be no doubt, merely because he was with her in the forest?"
There was something in the Marchese's manner which made it seem to the lawyer as if he must have already heard of the tragedy that had happened, and of the suspicion that had been thrown on his nephew. "Were you aware, then, Signor Marchese," he asked, "that the Marchese Ludovico had gone to the Pineta with this unhappy woman?"
The Marchese dropped his head upon his chest and paused a minute, passing his hand slowly across his brow and before his eyes, before he replied,—"Yes, I knew that," he said, at length; "the Conte Leandro told me of it."
"Your people told me, just now, that you had refused to see the Conte Leandro, when he called," remarked the lawyer, again looking puzzled.
"Yes, I refused to see him because my mind was full of the conversation we had this morning. You know I promised you, Signor Fortini, that I would think over the matter again; and I was engaged in doing so. I have been thinking of it all day; I was thinking of it still when you came in."
"Thinking still of your purpose of making the woman, La Bianca, your wife. Then you could not have heard of her miserable end when I came in,—as I supposed, indeed, you could not have heard," remarked the lawyer.
"Heard of it? Why of course not. That is clear—that proves that I could not have heard of it, you know," said the Marchese, with a strange sort of eagerness.
"When was it, then, that you heard from the Conte Leandro, that the Marchese Ludovico was in the Pineta with La Bianca?" asked the lawyer.
"At the ball," replied the Marchese, after a minute's thought, "at the ball. He came to me and told me that they had planned an excursion to the forest, as soon as they left the ball-room. The Conte Leandro told me of it, because, he said, he thought it an imprudent thing, and I should disapprove it. But why should I, you know? I said nothing to either of them about it. Why not let them have such an innocent enjoyment? Young people must be young, you know, Signor Fortini. For my part, I preferred making the best of my way to my bed, after being up all night." There was a strange kind of nervous eagerness and hurry in the Marchese's manner of saying this, which struck the lawyer as affording yet further evidence of the degree to which his mind had been utterly unhinged by the struggle which had been going on in it, doubtless for a longer time than he, the lawyer, was aware of, between the influence over him which the singer had acquired, and his sense of the terrible nature of the step she was inducing him to take. It seemed necessary to recall his attention to that view of the matter which was now of the most urgent interest, the suspicions which rested on the Marchese Ludovico.
"As you say, Signor Marchese," he resumed, "that Signor Ludovico should have been with La Bianca in the forest, affords no proof sufficient to convict him of being the author of this crime; although the fact of his being the last person in whose company she was ever seen alive, does suffice, in a certain degree, to throw on him the onus of showing that he is innocent of it. But the worst is—the damning feature of the matter is, that he had a very strong and intelligible reason for wishing this Bianca out of the way. Remember that your marriage with her would have the effect of reducing him to beggary. Put that fact side by side with the facts that he takes her to a solitary place in the Pineta, and that she is shortly afterwards found there murdered; and I am afraid—I am dreadfully afraid that the judges will not resist the conclusion that, in truth, seems forced upon them. It is a bad business, Signor Marchese; a very bad and ugly business."
"But I had not mentioned to the Marchese Ludovico my intention with regard to the girl. How could he have been led to do such an act by such a motive, when he knew nothing of it?" said the Marchese, after several minutes of consideration.
"Unfortunately he did know it, and has himself stated that he knew it. It seems that the girl herself took the opportunity of their drive together to tell him of the fact. Would to heaven that she had never done so," said Fortini, with a deep sigh.
"But anybody must see that it is a thousand times more probable that she should have been killed by robbers—vagabonds tramping through the country. The Pineta is always full of them. I am sure I would no more lie—I would no more wander there alone!—Of course the unfortunate girl must have been murdered by brigands."
"If any robbery had been committed, there might be reason to hope so, or at least ground for such theory. But, unfortunately, she had exposed on her person valuables exceedingly tempting to a thief; but they remained untouched."
At that moment there came a loud and hurried rapping at the door. The Marchese started violently in his chair, and turned deadly pale; another proof, if more were needed, of the degree in which his nervous system had been shaken by the intelligence he had received, coming, as it did, on the back of all that had previously contributed to unhinge his mind. In the next instant, a servant put his head into the room, saying that the Conte Leandro had returned, and was urgent to be admitted to see the Marchese, declaring that he had a very important communication to make to him.
"I cannot see him. I will not see him. I will see nobody. Signor Fortini, would you have the kindness to let him understand that I am not in a condition to see anybody?" said the Marchese, apparently much agitated.
The lawyer stepped rapidly to the door, and at the stair-head found the Conte Leandro, bursting with the news, which he had hoped to be the first to communicate to the Marchese, and which, of course, showed how wise and timely had been his own interference in telling the Marchese of the proposed excursion of Ludovico, and how disastrous had been the results of his not having paid due attention to it.
"My dear Conte," said Fortini, "I have just done the painful task which you, doubtless, have kindly come to undertake. You must excuse the Marchese if he declines, for the present, to see you. You will readily understand how terrible the shock has been to him. He is, as might be expected, quite broken down by it. In truth, I wish you had had the telling him instead of me. It was most painful."
"But, Signor Fortini," urged the poet, eagerly, as the lawyer was turning away to return to the Marchese, "are you aware—have you heard what is said in the town?—that the Marchese had offered marriage to La Bianca, and that this was the cause—of course I do not believe anything of the kind myself—but I assure you it is what people are saying. And I think the Marchese ought to be told, you know, for—"
"I will tell the Marchese of your kind intention, Signor Conte," said the lawyer; "I think it would be better for you not to attempt seeing him now. And, in the meantime, you cannot do better than to contradict, most emphatically, any such monstrously absurd reports, as those you have mentioned."
"You know, of course, that Ludovico is arrested; and I am shocked to say, that the general opinion in the city is very much against him. Of course I need not tell you that I am perfectly convinced of his entire innocence. But who, except a really attached friend, would you get to believe it, under the circumstances? Ah! I am afraid it will go hard with him," said the Conte; speaking with eager volubility,—"I am sadly. afraid it will go hard with him."
"It seems to me, Signor Conte, that any such speculations are a little premature. The Marchese Ludovico has not been even officially accused as yet. At any rate you can console yourself, Signor Conte, with the consideration that you have a magnificent subject for a tragedy in your hands. To such a genuine poet as yourself, that is enough to counterbalance any misfortune that only touches our friends."
And with that the old lawyer turned away to go back to the library; while the poet, though not altogether without a somewhat annoying notion that he was laughed at, was nevertheless delighted with the excellent idea that had been suggested to him.
"I made him understand that you could not see him. All he wanted was to tell you just what I have already communicated to you," said the lawyer, as he came back into the room. "He said too, by-the-by, that all the town was talking of the offer of marriage made by the Marchese Lamberto to Signora Bianca Lalli—"
"Of course, of course," groaned the Marchese, tossing himself restlessly from one side to the other of his chair. "And to think that at the very time,—at the hour when I was communicating to you the decision I had arrived at with regard to—to that unfortunate—to poor Bianca, she was even then, as it would seem, lying dead in the forest. It is very, very terrible."
"And I told the Signor Conte that he could not do better than contradict such a report wherever he heard it," added the lawyer, who began almost to fancy, from a something that seemed strange to him in the Marchese's manner, that the catastrophe which had come to relieve him in such a terrible manner from the scrape he had got himself into with the singer, was not altogether unwelcome to him.
"It is of no use, Fortini," returned the Marchese, with a groan; "it is of no use. That old man, her reputed father, knows it; their servant knows it; Ludovico knows it: and, of course, his knowledge of it will have to be made public."
"Nevertheless, the denial of it by such a tongue as that of the Conte Leandro Lombardoni can do no harm in the meantime," said the lawyer, quietly. "It may be," he added, "it may be that something may turn up to prevent any public accusation of the Marchese. It may be that he is not guilty. It may be that the deed may yet be brought home to some other hand."
"Do you think that, Fortini? do you think that likely?" said the Marchese, with a quickly withdrawn anxious look into the lawyer's face.
"No, frankly, I do not think it likely. I fear that it is very certain that his hand is the guilty one. Nevertheless, it may be—it is difficult to say—it may be. At all events, it is always time enough to abandon hope. I must leave you now, Signor Marchese; I will see you again to-morrow morning."
"Many, many thanks, my good Signor Giovacchino. Do not forget to come. Remember how dreadfully anxious I must be to hear what passes: above all, the result of the medical examination—specially the result of the medical examination."
"I will not fail to come. I miei saluti, Signor Marchese."
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