CHAPTER VI
THE BROKEN TROTH
Spring triumphed with a vaunting pageant in the park of Avellino,
where the gravelled walks were snowy beneath the light of the higher
risen moon, and were in shadows transmuted to dim, violet tints. The
sombre foliage of yew and box and ilex contrasted strangely with the
pale glow of the young grass, sloping in emerald tinted terraces down
to where the lake shimmered through the trees.
It was an enchanted spot, second only to the gardens of Castel
Fiorentino, with their broad terraces and gleaming marble steps, where
peacocks proudly strutted. At one end, a fountain sent its silvery
spray from a tangle of oleanders. Marble kiosks and statues gleamed
from the sea-green dusk of the groves. All around there rioted an
untamed profusion of shrubs: fantastic flowers of night, whose
fragrance hung heavy on the air. Ivy clung and climbed along the
crannies of gray walls; roses sprawled in a crimson torrent of perfume
over the weather-stained torsos of gods and satyrs. In the centre of
an ilex-grove a marble-cinctured lake gazed still-eyed at the sky,
with white swans floating dream-like on its mirrored black and silver.
The dusk deepened; the golden moon hung low in the horizon, flooding
the garden with a wan spectral light. The pool lay a lake of silver,
in a black fringe of trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy
perfume, making heavy the still air of summer.
Out of the velvet shadows there now came a woman, with dusky eyes and
scarlet lips and jewels that gleamed among the folds of her perfumed
robe. Slowly, like a phantom, she passed through the grove towards the
ivy-wreathed temple of Pomona by the marble-cinctured lake.
Francesco who had been waiting, his heart in his throat, rose with a
sigh of relief, mingled with a mighty dread. Would she understand?
Would she grasp the enormity of the sacrifice he must make on the
altar of duty and obedience? Could she guess, could she read the
terrible pain that racked his heart and soul at the thought of
parting,--a parting for life,--for all eternity? For never, even if by
chance they should again cross each other's path in life, could there
be aught between them save a look; their lips must be mute forevermore
and the voices of their hearts hushed.
So Fate had decreed it.
Bound hand and foot, he had been sold to his own undoing, to his own
doom.
In a faint whisper came his name. Two white hands were extended
towards him.
He arose, stumbled forward, and the next moment found them in close
embrace.
"My darling! My own! I feared I had been too bold in my feelings for
you!"
And again and again he kissed her mouth, her eyes, and the dusky sheen
of her hair.
"I love you!" she whispered, her arms about his neck, her witch-like
eyes drinking in the love and admiration which beamed from his. "Since
last night, it seemed to me, we had been parted for months!"
A dull insufferable pain gripped his heart.
For a moment he closed his eyes, then, placing his arm about her,
Francesco led her to a remote terrace where the velvet turf was bathed
in bluish silver-light, while far below, turning a little to eastward,
wound the shimmering thread of the Volturno, rippling softly through
the perfumed night into the emerald shadows of the sleeping forest.
All about these two lay dream-like silence.
What wonder they were both loath to break the spell! Francesco, with
heavy heart, watched the familiar scene, not daring to think, only
standing passive beside her, whose faint breath stirred elf-like the
rose upon his breast.
Ilaria, too, was silent, wondering, hoping, fearing, waiting for him
to speak.
A faint zephyr stole through the branches of the cypress and magnolia
trees. And from afar, as from another sphere, the faint sounds of
distant convent bells were wafted through the impassioned silence of
the southern night.
A sudden mighty longing leaped into his heart.
To banish it, he must speak. Yet, try as he would, he could not. His
lips refused to form the words and an ice-cold hand seemed to grip his
heart.
Turning suddenly, he took the sweet face into his hands and held it
for a pace, and looked into her eyes with such a mad hunger, such
delirious longing, that she too caught the moment's spell. Her breath
came in gasps; her lips were thirstily ajar; she began to lean towards
him, and at last he threw his arms about her and caught the dear head
so wildly to his bosom, that woman-like she guessed there was
something hidden beneath it all, and while she abandoned herself to
his caresses, softly responding to them, the waves of a great fear
swept over her own heart.
Looking up at him, she caught the strange, wild expression in his
face, an expression she had twice surprised since his return from his
mysterious voyage, once in the rose-garden, then at the repast.
"Francesco," she breathed, with anxious wonderment in her tone, "why
do you look at me like that?"
Thoroughly frightened by his manner, she caught him by the arm.
He looked at her with bewildered eyes, but made no immediate response.
"Why do you look at me like that?" she repeated, her fear enhanced by
his fierce look, his heaving breath. "Speak! What is it you have to
tell me? They are stirring in the courtyard. We have scant time. And
you--are you ready when the signal sounds? Your garb is ill-suited for
a journey!"
At her words he gradually shook off the lethargy which seemed to
benumb his senses.
Absently he looked down upon his garb.
"I forgot," he muttered, then the realization being forced upon him
that he must speak, he took a deep breath, and the words sprang
fiercely from his lips.
"Ilaria--can you guess the import of this hour? Can you guess why we
are here at this moment?"
She looked up at him questioningly, but did not speak.
"We are here," he stammered, looking helplessly into her face,--"to
say farewell."
"Farewell?" she repeated with wonderment. "Do you not ride with us?"
A negative gesture was slowly followed by the words:
"I do not ride with you."
"I do not understand!" she said, hesitation in her tone. "Has the
Viceroy--"
"I am no longer of the court!"
She started. He saw the roses fade from her cheeks.
"Dismissed?"
The words stung him like a whip-lash.
He bowed his head.
"I will see Count Capecé at once! He will not refuse a boon to Ilaria
Caselli!"
She had arisen, as if to suit the action to the words.
He gently drew her back, disregarding her resistance, her wondering
look.
"It is beyond recall!"
From the castle court there came the sound of a fanfare.
Neither noted it.
Yet a touch of impatience tinged Ilaria's words, as she turned to him
anew.
"What ails you, Francesco? You are dealing in enigmas. Why are you
dismissed? Why may I not see the Viceroy at once,--ere it be too
late?"
"Because it _is_ too late. We part--for life!"
A deadly pallor had overspread her features.
"I do not understand!" she faltered.
His head drooped. It was with difficulty he maintained his
self-control.
"I feared as much,--and yet, the word must be
spoken,--farewell--forever--these two words alone--"
"Forever!" she exclaimed, "and between us? No,--no,--not that,--not
that!" She held out both hands to him. He caught them in his own, as a
drowning man would hold on to a straw.
"And yet,--we must!" he replied, with a choking voice. "Oh,
Ilaria--Ilaria--my sweetheart--my darling,--save me! Save me!"
He broke off suddenly and stared at her vacantly.
"Lord Christ,--what do I say! No, no! I did not mean that! I pray to
God, that we may not."
"May not--what?" she interposed, her eyes in his. "Francesco, speak!
What troubles you? What is the meaning of it all?"
"Oh, Ilaria," he said slowly, "it is indeed more difficult to tell
than I had guessed. When I leave Avellino, it will be never to
return!"
"But why--why, Francesco?" she questioned, alarmed by his words, but
more by the wild expression of his countenance.
"How can I tell it--how can I tell it? Is it not enough for you, to
know that I must go?"
"You frighten me!" she whispered, drawing nearer to him.
He took her in his arms and held her close, very close to him,
pressing his lips upon her closed eyes. It was his farewell to love,
to life.
"Tell me that you love me!" he begged in piteous tones.
"I love you," she breathed in whispered accents, broken by a sob. "Do
you not know?"
"I love you," he cried with sudden fierceness, flinging the words in
rebellion at the inexorable fate which was in store for him.
"Then,--why must we say it,--the word?" she queried anxiously. "Think
you that I fear to follow you,--wherever you may go?"
For a moment he held her in close embrace, then his arms fell, as if
paralyzed, from about her. He drew back one quick step, a look
crossing his face that startled her even more than his strange
unexplained words.
"There where I go, you could not follow me ever," he said at last with
the resolution of despair. "I am bound by a sacred oath to leave the
world. I have no right to ask any woman for her love! Henceforth, my
home--this castle--must be a dream, a memory to me, and you, Ilaria,
will stand as far above me as yonder star soars above the earth!
Ilaria! I have pledged my word to my father that I will bid farewell
to life and happiness, to take in their stead the lonely vows of a
Benedictine monk!"
There was a dead silence.
For a moment she looked at him, as if trying fully to comprehend what
it was he had said.
Then his meaning pierced her brain.
She shrank slowly away from him, then stood quite still, her eyes wide
and dark with horror, her face white, as a mask of death. A great icy
wave of silence seemed to have swept between them, shutting them out
from the world of life.
In an instant all the softness and gentleness of her manner dropped
from her like a discarded garment. She drew her trailing robes about
her as if she dreaded contamination from him. A single petal from the
flower he wore had fallen upon her breast. She brushed it from where
it nestled. It fluttered down upon the grass.
"A monk! And you have dared to touch me!" she hissed, as if she would
have spat upon him.
A mist came over Francesco's eyes. For a few moments he was conscious
of nothing. All life and expression had gone from his face. He did not
see the flood of grief, the anguish and the wounded pride that
prompted her action. He only saw her turn about without another word,
and move swiftly from him towards the castle court, her eyes blinded
with tears.
Like one dazed, Francesco stood and stared at the spot whence she had
gone. He saw and heard nothing save in memory. His white garb
shimmered in the moonlight with more life in its purity than there was
in his face. His soul was wrapped in awful bitterness at his
destiny,--the punishment for his father's sin.
He had not told her. He had told no one. Twice on the same day he had
been misunderstood, his integrity assailed. He had hoped and prayed
for understanding. His prayer had been denied. None there was who
understood, none who even vaguely guessed the enormity of the
sacrifice. Pity only he had encountered, a pity akin to contempt, from
those whose cause he had seemingly deserted; disdain from her whose
lips might have alleviated the burden of his destiny by a blessing
that he might take with him on his lonely, solitary road.
How long he stood thus, his limbs benumbed, paralyzed with grief,
afraid to move, almost afraid to breathe, he knew not. An icy hand
seemed to clutch his heart.
Suddenly from the castle there came the renewed sound of fanfares,
repeated in brief intervals. They were preparing to start. No one
thought of him. For them he had already ceased to be.
With an effort he roused himself.
Not a moment was to be lost. He had no longer any right here, no
longer the right to mingle with the happy companions of former days.
The thought that she too had turned from him in his hour of need, lent
him wings. He must set out at once. All that had at one time delighted
him, now repelled with the consciousness, that it was not for him.
He stole back to the castle over devious paths, reached his chamber
and gathered up his scant belongings. A last look round the walls he
had learned to love, then he crept softly out into the corridor.
Everywhere he met the rush and hubbub of hurried preparation for
departure. No one heeded him. The hall below seemed to yawn beneath
him like a black pit as he descended.
Crossing the courtyard amidst throngs of pages, squires, and
pursuivants, he made for the stables, saddled his steed, and rode out
by the postern, unheeded, unchallenged.
The land of his heart's desire had vanished behind him, like the
fairy-land of golden sunset dreams that fades away when darkness
comes.