The Cloister and the Hearth Part 103

Perhaps something in his deep and patient sigh touched a tender chord in that ungoverned creature; or perhaps the time had come for one pa.s.sion to ebb and another to flow. The princess sank languidly into a seat, and the tears began to steal rapidly down her cheeks.

"Alas! alas!" said Gerard. "Weep not, sweet lady; your tears they do accuse me, and I am like to weep for company. My kind patron; be yourself! you will live to see how much better a friend I was to you than I seemed."

"I see it now, Gerardo," said the princess. "Friend is the word: the only word can ever pa.s.s between us twain. I was mad. Any other man had ta'en advantage of my folly. You must teach me to be your friend and nothing more."

Gerard hailed this proposition with joy; and told her out of Cicero how G.o.dlike a thing was friendship, and how much better and rarer and more lasting than love: to prove to her he was capable of it, he even told her about Denys and himself.

She listened with her eyes half shut, watching his words to fathom his character, and learn his weak point.

At last, she addressed him calmly thus: "Leave me now, Gerardo; and come as usual to-morrow. You will find your lesson well bestowed." She held out her hand to him: he kissed it; and went away pondering deeply this strange interview, and wondering whether he had done prudently or not.

The next day he was received with marked distance, and the princess stood before him literally like a statue, and after a very short sitting, excused herself and dismissed him. Gerard felt the chilling difference: but said to himself, "She is wise." So she was in her way.

The next day, he found the princess waiting for him surrounded by young n.o.bles flattering her to the skies. She and they treated him like a dog that could do one little trick they could not. The cavaliers in particular criticised his work with a ma.s.s of ignorance and insolence combined that made his cheeks burn.

The princess watched his face demurely with half-closed eyes, at each sting the insects gave him: and, when they had fled, had her doors closed against every one of them for their pains.

The next day Gerard found her alone: cold, and silent. After standing to him so some time, she said, "You treated my company with less respect than became you."

"Did I, signora?"

"Did you? you fired up at the comments they did you the honour to make on your work."

"Nay, I said nought," observed Gerard.

"Oh, high looks speak as plain as high words. Your cheeks were red as blood."

"I was nettled a moment at seeing so much ignorance and ill-nature together."

"Now it is me, their hostess, you affront."

"Forgive me, signora, and acquit me of design. It would ill become me to affront the kindest patron and friend I have in Rome--but one."

"How humble we are all of a sudden. In sooth, Ser Gerardo, you are a capital feigner. You can insult or truckle at will."

"Truckle? to whom?"

"To me, for one; to one, whom you affronted for a base-born girl like yourself: but whose patronage you claim all the same."

Gerard rose, and put his hand to his heart. "These are biting words, signora. Have I really deserved them?"

"Oh, what are words to an adventurer like you? cold steel is all you fear."

"I am no swashbuckler, yet I have met steel with steel: and methinks I had rather face your kinsmen's swords than your cruel tongue, lady. Why do you use me so?"

"Gerar-do, for no good reason, but because I am wayward, and shrewish, and curst, and because everybody admires me but you."

"I admire you too, signora. Your friends may flatter you more; but believe me they have not the eye to see half your charms. Their babble yesterday showed me that. None admire you more truly, or wish you better, than the poor artist, who might not be your lover, but hoped to be your friend: but no, I see that may not be between one so high as you, and one so low as I."

"Ay! but it shall, Gerardo," said the princess, eagerly. "I will not be so curst. Tell me now where abides thy Margaret; and I will give thee a present for her; and on that you and I will be friends."

"She is the daughter of a physician called Peter, and they bide at Sevenbergen; ah me shall I e'er see it again?"

"'Tis well. Now go." And she dismissed him somewhat abruptly.

Poor Gerard. He began to wade in deep waters when he encountered this Italian princess; callida et calida solis filia. He resolved to go no more when once he had finished her likeness. Indeed he now regretted having undertaken so long and laborious a task.

This resolution was shaken for a moment by his next reception, which was all gentleness and kindness.

After standing to him some time in her toga, she said she was fatigued, and wanted his a.s.sistance in another way: would he teach her to draw a little? He sat down beside her, and taught her to make easy lines. He found her wonderfully apt. He said so.

"I had a teacher before thee, Gerar-do. Ay, and one as handsome as thyself." She then went to a drawer, and brought out several heads drawn with a complete ignorance of the art, but with great patience and natural talent. They were all heads of Gerard, and full of spirit: and really not unlike. One was his very image.

"There," said she. "Now thou seest who was my teacher."

"Not I, signora."

"What, know you not who teaches us women to do all things? 'Tis love, Gerar-do. Love made me draw because thou drawest, Gerar-do. Love prints thine image in my bosom. My fingers touch the pen, and love supplies the want of art, and lo! thy beloved features lie upon the paper."

Gerard opened his eyes with astonishment at this return to an interdicted topic. "Oh, signora, you promised me to be friends and nothing more."

She laughed in his face. "How simple you are; who believes a woman promising nonsense, impossibilities? Friendship, foolish boy, who ever built that temple on red ashes? Nay, Gerardo," she added gloomily, "between thee and me it must be love or hate."

"Which you will, signora," said Gerard, firmly. "But for me I will neither love nor hate you; but with your permission I will leave you."

And he rose abruptly.

She rose too pale as death, and said, "Ere thou leavest me so, know thy fate; outside that door are armed men who wait to slay thee at a word from me."

"But you will not speak that word, signora."

"That word I will speak. Nay, more, I shall noise it abroad it was for proffering brutal love to me thou wert slain; and I will send a special messenger to Sevenbergen: a cunning messenger, well taught his lesson.

Thy Margaret shall know thee dead, and think thee faithless; now, go to thy grave; a dog's. For a man thou art not."

Gerard turned pale, and stood dumbstricken. "G.o.d have mercy on us both."

"Nay, have thou mercy on her, and on thyself. She will never know in Holland what thou dost in Rome; unless I be driven to tell her my tale.

Come, yield thee, Gerar-do mio: what will it cost thee to say thou lovest me? I ask thee but to feign it handsomely. Thou art young: die not for the poor pleasure of denying a lady what--the shadow of a heart.

Who will shed a tear for thee? I tell thee men will laugh, not weep, over thy tombstone--ah!" She ended in a little scream, for Gerard threw himself in a moment at her feet, and poured out in one torrent of eloquence the story of his love and Margaret's. How he had been imprisoned, hunted with bloodhounds for her, driven to exile for her; how she had shed her blood for him, and now pined at home. How he had walked through Europe, environed by perils, torn by savage brutes, attacked by furious men, with sword and axe and trap, robbed, shipwrecked for her.

The princess trembled, and tried to get away from him: but he held her robe, he clung to her, he made her hear his pitiful story and Margaret's; he caught her hand, and clasped it between both his, and his tears fell fast on her hand, as he implored her to think on all the woes of the true lovers she would part; and what but remorse, swift and lasting, could come of so deep a love betrayed, and so false a love feigned, with mutual hatred lurking at the bottom.

In such moments none ever resisted Gerard.

The princess, after in vain trying to get away from him, for she felt his power over her, began to waver, and sigh, and her bosom to rise and fall tumultuously, and her fiery eyes to fill.

"You conquer me," she sobbed. "You, or my better angel. Leave Rome!"

"I will, I will."