The Fool Errant Part 29

Red rage now possessed me; I do not believe an angelic messenger could have stopped me now. Changing my sword hand, I attacked my man, who ran lightly back to avoid me. I pursued him, I closed with him, we had a desperate rally for perhaps a minute and a half. I know that I pinked him twice, for I saw the blood on his shirt; in another few seconds I had his sword flying out of his hand and himself his full length on the sward.

There then lay this shameful enemy, traducer of ladies, treacherous friend, hirer of murderers--why should I spare him? I did not intend it.

I went up to him fully prepared to deal death upon him, fallen though he were. At that moment I thought that no power of earth or Heaven could have saved his life. And yet there was one power which could and did: the power of Aurelia's name.

His pocket-handkerchief was stuck in his waistband; and as I stood above him full of meditated and most reasonable murder, I happened to see upon it, in red letters, his cipher; a coronet, and under that the initials of his name, Amadeo Giraldi. They struck me like the writing on the wall, as if they had been letters of fire. A. G., I read there--the letters of Aurelia's virgin name! A. G.--Aurelia Gualandi, untried maiden of Siena once, innocent of all the evil that men could devise against her, unsullied rose dropped from the lap of Mary the mother of us all! Could I dare--could I indeed dare to slay one who bore, though shamefully, those letters of hers whose perfection I was here to maintain? I knew that I could not; I lowered my sword.

I looked at him where he lay, perfectly still, calm now, with his black eyes fixed upon mine. I said, "I hope that you are prepared for justice, Count Giraldi, at my hands."

He replied with a smile, "I am prepared for anything, my dear sir. Least of all, perhaps, for justice at this moment."

"It is what you least deserve," I said, "since it is what you practise least; but there are circ.u.mstances at work in your favour. You must, however, confess yourself a liar. That is indispensable. Come now, what do you say?" At this moment Malcolm came back with a red sword.

"I have paid him in his own coin," he said, "but I think we had best be off."

"Go, my dear Malcolm," I told him. "Do not delay a moment. I shall not leave Florence in any case."

"Are you mad, my dear?" he cried. I said that I had no notion whether I was mad or not; but that I had work to do in Florence, and intended to finish it. I persuaded him at last to get away to Lucca at once, where I hoped to join him. The doctor came up to report Semifonte quite dead.

I returned to the count, who said to me, "Every man over forty is, and must be, a liar, since, in a sense, his very existence is a lie. If it will satisfy you, I will a.s.sure you that I am over forty."

I accepted that periphrasis. "And now," I said, "I will tell you to whom you owe your life. It is to that lady whom you have dared to traduce--to her and no other. I gather that you will not repeat your slander."

"I promise you that, sir," said he. "But I am curious to learn how Donna Aurelia can have interceded."

"Her name in maidenhood," I said, "was Aurelia Gualandi. There upon your handkerchief I read her initials, 'A. G.'"

"The handkerchief is my own, I swear it!" he cried with pa.s.sion. "Will you make the merest coincidence accuse her again? Shame upon you, sir."

"Never in the world," said I. "I never doubted but it was your own. The cipher saved you, not the handkerchief."

I suppose that he was too faint by now to understand me, for he only put his hand up and shook it to and fro. "Exquisite fool!" I heard him say, and then with a groan, "Gesu, I die!" he fainted in earnest. I helped the surgeon carry him to his coach, then walked to my lodging, leaving the marchese astare at the trees.

CHAPTER XLVI

THE DISCOVERY

I was to dine that night with the Prior of Saint Mark's, a former acquaintance of mine, and I kept my engagement, though I left the party early. My wound, which was painful but not dangerous, was not the cause of that. The fact is that I was arrested while we were sitting over our fruit and wine, at a moment when I was enunciating a favourite theory of mine that this world is a garden for every man alive of us who happens to be a gardener, and for no other; and that he only is a gardener who lives for the joy of his labour and not for the material profit he can make out of his toil. The Grand Inquisitor--that pock-marked Dominican who had treated me with uncharitable harshness upon my first visit to Florence--was present at table, and was upon the point of denouncing my argument as perverse, unchristian and I know not what else; he had said, "It is my deliberate opinion that detestable beliefs as are Atheism, Calvinism, Mahometanism and the tenets of the Quietists, it were better for a man to embrace all of them in one vast, comprehensive blasphemy, than depend for their refutation upon any argument which Mr. Strelley can advance----" when a friar opened the door and ushered in a lieutenant of police and his guard. The officer saluted the company in general and myself in particular. "Sir," he said politely to me, "I have the honour to arrest you, in the Grand Duke's name, for the barbarous murder of the most ill.u.s.trious Marchese Deifobo Semifonte, for the attempted murder of his Excellency Count Amadeo Giraldi, and for contravention of the law of duelling. By express command of the Syndic I am to put your honour in irons. Corporal, do your duty."

I said nothing in reply, but took leave of my host with all the proper form of society, a.s.suring him that I should take with me whithersover I went a grateful memory of his beautiful and peaceful retirement; I bowed to my fellow-guest, and then suffered the corporal to chain my hands behind me. A coach was awaiting me at the gate; I entered it with the lieutenant and was driven to the Bargello.

I was not ill-treated by any means. I had a small but decent chamber a.s.signed to me, and I was alone. When I demanded that my accusation should be read over, in order that I might engage a lawyer for my defence, I was a.s.sured that this would not be at all necessary, as there would be no trial. In that case, I begged them to leave me to repose and meditation, which they were so good as to do. I had an excellent night's rest, and was very ready for my chocolate at eight o'clock in the morning.

Whilst I was sipping this, expecting every moment the arrival of my servant with my clothes, clean linen, letters, and a barber, I heard the key turn in the lock, and made sure that it was Federigo. But the warder introduced a m.u.f.fled figure of a woman, who, when he had retired, came quickly towards me, as if she was about to stab me. "Miserable young man!" she said fiercely. It was Aurelia!

I sprang up, took, saluted her hand, "Madam," I said, "this is a condescension which I am far from deserving. I have done nothing but my duty."

Her eyes were very bright, and she was distressed for breath; but there was an intensity in her manner--a fire, a flame--which made her vehement.

"Your duty, indeed!" she cried. "When may I expect you to find your duty elsewhere than in my affairs? Am I never to have paid off my original debt to your lordship? It is not enough, it appears, that you make love to me--but you must tell my husband all about it! It is not enough that he drives me out of doors and that you refuse to come with me--no, but you must wander about by yourself, telling all the world what you have done. It is not enough that you make me love you, but you must needs intrigue with a low-born girl, a thing of naught! And now, finally, you come galloping into Florence again, and you--you----Oh, Heavens, I have no patience left to speak of such things! How did you dare"--she stamped her foot furiously, her cheeks were flame-red--"How did you dare do such deeds? You have killed the marchese--dead; you have given Count Amadeo three dangerous wounds and a fever; you are in every mouth, and not you only, you wicked boy, but myself and my husband--and--and----" She wrung her hands, she shook with anger, but at last she was silent. I ventured to say that she did me wrong, though any wrong she did me would be benevolence compared to my trespa.s.ses against her. I said that I had not killed the marchese, who, on the contrary, had done his best to murder me twice; and that as for the count, who had slandered her vilely and deserved a felon's death, I had spared his life upon his retractation of his calumny. "I hope," I said in conclusion, "that he told you to whom he actually owed his life."

"He did, sir," said she haughtily; "he told me that you had been very absurd, and had made him feel a fool--which he did not at all relish.

Oh, oh, oh!" she broke out with a little burst of laughter, "how could you be so mad as to spare him for his pocket-handkerchief!"

"For a reason, madam," I said, "which does not amuse me at all."

"Nor should it," she agreed. "That was a serious thing that you did, Checho. It was more serious than you seem to suppose. The wounds in his person are nothing compared to what you did beside. He is a proud man, and you have wounded his vanity. I doubt if he will ever be healed of that stroke. Do you know what he said to me just now?"

She was perfectly friendly now, by my side, almost touching me with her quick beautiful hands. With what seemed to me a levity no longer becoming the woman she was grown to be, she talked of serious things with sparkling eyes, and would give me confidences which she had received from an impudent liar. In reply to her question I shook my head. I could not speak to her just then, nor could I look at her.

She told me her story. "Count Amadeo said to me this morning, 'My friend, the fact that I owe you this preposterous debt of initials makes it more than doubtful whether I can ever endure to pay it off. I could have had no objection to stand indebted to Don Francis for my life, but I am a man of honour, with a name which I have some reason to value, and I a.s.sure you that it is not tolerable to me that I should owe its continuance in my person to the fact that my mistress's maiden name began with the same letters.' He said also----"

But I had caught her by the arm. "No more," I cried, "No more, O G.o.d!"

She was alarmed. "You are ill, you are ill, Checho?"

I said, "I stand at a death-bed. Love lies dying down there. Hush. We should be on our knees."

She was now weeping bitterly. "O la.s.so! O la.s.so! What have I done to you?"

"I fought in your honour, madam," I said, commanding myself, "I dared a murder in your defence. I would have stormed h.e.l.l's ramparts and put the baleful city to the sword in the same cause. From that accursed day on which I first saw you until now I have held you high before my face as the glory of womanhood. And now you repeat the slander for which that monster lay at my mercy. You repeat it--you allowed him to say it in your ear!"

She was pale, her eyes were wide; but she did not retreat. "But," she said, "but it is true, Checho. It is true. What he said to you was true-- and now--" she frowned as she pondered out what was to come; clouds gathered over her beautiful, soulless face; she folded her arms, clenched her teeth and stormed at me.

"You fool, you fool, you fool!" she said fiercely, panting for breath with which to end me. "Oh, you dream-child, you moonraker, what are you doing in a world where men work for their pleasures and women have to cringe for the sc.r.a.ps? What was I to do when Porfirio shut me out of doors, and you--you, who had caused it, refused to come with me? Was I to spread my wings and fly straight into the lap of the Madonna? You would say so, I suppose! Your flights were very fine, but one cannot live on the wind. Any man but a poet would have picked me up at the door and taken care of me with a 'Come, my beloved, we will fly together.'

But no! You were making eyes at the stars, and protesting that two of them were my eyes, and the moon my forehead. And then--O Dio! and then, when you found me again in Florence, what did you do? I was at my wit's ends, and you kissed my hands! There! That was all--all--all--on the word of a Christian! Did I not try to get more from you? Any one but a poet would know that I did. I heard your long poems, I touched you, I ran to meet you, I was kind, I was cross, I called you to me and then turned my back upon you. And then I found out, sir, what your baciar-di- mani, and bowings and reverences were worth. They were worth--myself.

You had your Virginia snug at home, in a brocaded gown, and a fan, my word! Do you think I could not guess the truth of your story about her?

Her honour indeed! What have such rubbish to do with honour? A Virginia, a baggage for your arms--and I, to have my hand kissed, and to yawn over dreary verses! By the Madonna, but I did my best to stop that play. Let me tell you, Don Francis, that it was I--I--I"--she struck her bosom with each naming of herself--"who told Semifonte where he could lay hands upon his chattel. You believed it was the count--it was I!"

Quivering, breathing fire and anger, beautiful as a G.o.ddess and wicked as a fiend--what was I to say to this terrible witness? She had stayed for lack of breath, panting, tapping her foot, her bosom heaving like the sea under her close arms--and I was face to face with her, alone, with ruin between us. So with a stamp of her little foot, so with a flick of the fingers, it seems, she had broken her own image and killed love outright. There and then love died, and his funeral knell was the horrid barking laughter with which I greeted this end of her story.

"Madam," I said, when I had laughed hatefully and long, "I have robbed you of a lover, and you, in return, have robbed me of my love. You ought to be as much obliged to me as I am to you."

She scowled at me darkly. I think she would have stabbed me gladly, but just then the warder entered with my servant, and an official from the palace. This latter, with a profound salutation, handed me a letter from the count. Asking leave, I opened it and read as follows:

MY DEAR DON FRANCIS,--I have just learned, with concern, that you are in prison upon two charges--one false, and another which is trumpery. I hasten to a.s.sure you that orders have been given which will satisfy your sense of justice, and, I hope, improve your opinion of myself. I believe that by this time you will have been a.s.sured that it was not I who betrayed your confidences to Semifonte--who, between you and me, has got his deserts, or (according to the orthodox) must now be getting them. As for my more recent offence--the real ground of our little encounter--I can a.s.sure you of this, that if I ever make any such a.s.sertion again, and you again call me a liar, I shall not resent it; for a liar I shall be. I kiss your hands and am, with the most perfect esteem,

"My dear Don Francis,

"Your most obedient, faithful, humble servant,

"COUNT AMADEO GIRALDI.

"P. S.--It may be discreet in you to repair to Lucca for the summer heats. Pray command me in any occasion you may have."

My doors were set open. The first use I made of my freedom was to escort Donna Aurelia to her chair. Without a word spoken between us, I handed her in and shut to the door. The chairman asked me for a direction.