Little Novels of Italy/The Duchess of Nona/Chapter 10
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WITH ALL FAULTS
At the coming out from church the two Dukes (mentally at least) separated; their paths coincided, but not their thoughts, nor their behaviour. By common consent, as it appeared, Amilcare at once resumed the obsequious, Cesare the overbearing part. Amilcare talked profusively, smirked, grimaced, pranced by the other's side, writhed his hands, in copious explanation of nothing at all. Cesare shrugged. The amount of disdain an Italian can throw into a pair of dull eyes or an irritable shoulder, the amount of it another will take without swallowing, can still be studied whenever a young lieutenant of the line sits down to breakfast in a tavern, and the waiter slaves for his penny fee. Yet, depend upon it, the cringer has balanced to a nicety the sweets and sours of boot-blacking against the buona mano; the rest is pure commerce. So now, the deliberate insolence of the flushed Borgia towards his host was a thing to be dumb at; yet Passavente redoubled his volubility.
Going up the steps of the Palazzo Bagnacavallo, the guest plumply told his entertainer to bring out the woman and go to the devil with his cackling. Amilcare laughed all over his face at the best joke in the world, and bowed to the earth. Thus humoured they went in to dinner.
Molly, in fold over fold of silk gauze which let every lovely limb be seen as glorified in a rosy mist, met them in the ante-room, and thenceforth the Borgia had eyes for nothing but the beauty of her. The moment he saw her, he drew, as once before, a sharp breath; she greeted him in her fashion; he was moved to a fit of trembling.
From that time forth Amilcare was as though he were not. The Roman waited for no invitation and disregarded those he got. Would his Grace be pleased to dine? His Grace went on pouring out his talk to the wonderful rose-coloured lady. Amilcare, patient to excess, watched. Presently Cesare said, "Madama, shall we go to dinner?" and to dinner they went, Amilcare rubbing his hands behind them.
They found the table prepared—a very low one; divans to sit upon; none but Grifone, pale and respectful, in the little painted chamber.
All this had been carefully provided. The Duke's suite dined in another wing of the palace; the choir of minstrels, who held the passage between them, had mail under their cassocks, and two-edged swords made for thrusting. They were fifty strong. Every page-in-waiting in the hall and long cool passages was a "Centaur" armed to the teeth. Don Cesare, it seems, had walked into a steel trap at last. Do you wonder that Amilcare could afford a supple back?
But as the delicate meats succeeded each other—each duly tasted by Grifone before a morsel went to plate—there was one, in the surge of her terrors, struck dumb with what was, rather, wonder. The magnificent Cesare went his road over the feelings of his host; the host bowed and waved his hands. Why should he not? Never one word of answer, never a gleam of attention did he win from the Roman. Why should he care? His wife was doing her duty, his enemy was webbed: what else could matter? The Italian shrug goes deeper than the shoulders; sometimes it strokes the heart of a man. The very indignities heaped upon the adventurer made his revenge the sweeter nursling.
But Molly, the tall English girl, burning in her shameful robe, saw it vastly otherwise. That a man could bend so low! That she should ever have loved a man with such a stooping back! To think of that made (for the moment) every other degradation light. Her part as yet was one of sufferance: to look handsome, languid with the excess of her burden of beauty; to smile slowly, to keep her eyes on her lap. Pure passivity all this, under which the miserable soul could torture in secret. As she often had a back-ache, it was easy to wilt among her cushions; as she was always mute before flattery, to smile was as simple as to frown and meant no more; as she was ashamed of herself and her husband, she could hardly hope to lift her honest eyes, or temper her furious blushing.
It would be untrue to say that the Borgia's eager under-current of love-language stirred her not at all. Even to her the man's fame made his homage a tribute; something it was, beyond doubt, to be courted by the greatest prince in Italy. And he had not touched her yet. Amilcare, whose desperate grinning made his jaws ache, noticed so much as he watched her, fidgeting in his place. His nails were for ever at his teeth: when the fruit should come in he was to slip out, and Grifone to crown the work. Meanwhile, the flagrant unconcern for his whereabouts shown by the victim might have stung a blind worm to bite, or excused any treachery. Amilcare had no rage at all and felt the need of no excuse. All his anxiety was that Cesare should enmesh himself deep enough; and then—! The thought of what should happen then set his head singing a song as mad as Judith's.
The still Grifone stood behind his mistress and saw Cesare's golden head sink near and yet nearer to her shoulder. He watched his arm over the back of her seat, and how his other hand crept towards the lady's idle pair. The room held those four, and them not long. In his time Amilcare muttered some excuse and tiptoed out.
Cesare was saying, "Ah, give me love—love only—else I must die!"
Molly answered nothing with her lips, but in her bosom prayed ceaselessly for pity.
"Love me, pledge me with your lips, let me drink of you, O my soul!" sighed the Duke.
"Ecco, Madonna," said Grifone, and handed her the cup.
"The chalice of love!" cried Cesare, straining towards the white girl. "Drink to me, my heart, and I will drink from thee!"
Molly still held the cup, though the liquor curved brimming at the lip. Her eyes were sightless, her head shaking with palsy.
"Drink, drink, my soul!"
"Yes, my lord, yes, yes; I must drink very deep," she said, and raised the cup.
"Pshutt!" said Grifone.
She turned like a caught beast, wild and blanched with horror. She rose suddenly, swaying on her feet, entangled one of them in her long robe and stumbled forward to stay herself by the table. She looked like some spurred Bacchante, lurching over the board with the great flagon a-nod in her hand. Cesare made to catch her in his arms, and reached for the cup; but then she screamed with all her might and threw the accursed thing crash upon the pavement.
"Treachery! Treachery!" Molly shrieked; and again, "Treachery! O God, he has made me a devil!" She threw her head up, herself tumbled back upon the cushions; knew nothing of Grifone's "Go, go, go, my lord; the house is quick with murder!" and when she opened her eyes at last saw Amilcare standing grim and grey before her.
Who can say what shall best reveal a man, whether love or hate or fear? Or how to know which of these three passions stripped her this Amilcare naked? Naked he was now, and she found that she had never known him. The colour of his face was that of old white wax; his mouth seemed stretched to cracking point, neither turned up at the corners nor down, but a bleak slit jagged across his face. He fastened her with his hard eyes, which seemed smaller than usual, and had a scared look, as if he was positively disconcerted at what he read as they glimmered over his wife. In one of his hands (never still) he had a long knife, very lean in the blade.
"Ah, what do you want of me more, Amilcare?" It was Molly spoke first, in a whisper.
He croaked his reply. "I am going to kill you."
"Oh! oh! You are going to kill me, my lord?"
"You have sold me to my enemy. He is your lover."
"No, no! I have no lover, Amilcare; I have never had a lover."
"Liar!" he thundered. "If he had not been your lover you would not have spared his life. There can be no other reason. I am not a fool."
To Grifone that was just what he appeared. To her some ray of her own soul's honest logic showed at the last.
"Amilcare!" she cried out, on her knees, "Amilcare, listen, I pray you. I have done you no wrong; I implore you not to hurt me; I have done you honour. It was because I loved you that I saved his life. I speak the truth, my lord, I speak the truth."
"I have never thought you to speak otherwise; but I have been wrong, it appears. The excuse is monstrous. I am going to kill you."
The miserable girl turned him a pinched face. She searched for any shred of what she had known in him, but all the deadly mask of him she saw told her nothing. She began to be witless again, to wring her hands, to whimper and whine.
Amilcare looked fixedly at her, every muscle in his face rigid as stone. So, as he ruminated, some whisp of his racing thought caught light from his inner rage, flared blood-bright before him, and convulsing him drove him to his work.
"Gross trull!" He sprang at her with his knife in the air. Molly shrieked for mercy; and before he could be on her Grifone whipped out his dagger and stabbed his master under the stabbing arm.
Amilcare jerked in mid-career, constricted and turned half. But the blow had gone too deep and too true. He fell horribly, and Molly knew no more