The Duchess of Trajetto Part 2

"Your peril compelled me to fly to your succour. I have brought a troop of horse, and will not leave you till danger and alarm be past."

"How very good of you!" said the d.u.c.h.ess. "I was, indeed, sorely scared--"

"Fear no more," said he. "No harm shall reach you but through myself."

"How very good of you," repeated the d.u.c.h.ess. "I was, indeed, as I said, sorely scared; but all danger, and even the fear of it, is now over--"

"That is more than you can tell," interrupted the Cardinal, "and since you, the n.o.blest and fairest lady in Italy, are so utterly unprotected, I shall make your safety my care as long as Barbarossa is off the coast."

"Though I hope to have no need of you as a guard, you are most welcome as a guest," said the d.u.c.h.ess. Then, addressing her seneschal, she said, "Let suitable apartments be instantly prepared for his Eminence and also for his suite, and provide good quarters for his Eminence's troops and good stabling for their horses--"

"I lodge with the Dominicans," interrupted the Cardinal, "and the Prior will tell me where to bestow my men--"

"Nay, then," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "direct immediate refection to be served for his Eminence, and bid the Prior and a few select friends to supper; to wit, Sertorio Pepe and his sister, Madonna Bianca, the Abate Siffredi and the Abate Vincenzo."

The seneschal bowed low and withdrew.

"Giulia," said the Cardinal, reproachfully, "I am unwelcome."

"On the contrary, you are most welcome," said she; "but I seek to grace my guest, and distrust my own powers of entertainment. You find us in sad disorder, but I will send a line to the Bishop--"

"Pray do nothing so unnecessary, so unwished for--Ah, Giulia! it was not thus I hoped you would welcome me! You will never understand that I am your true friend, and prefer your conversation to that of any one else. Your welfare, your safety, are dear to me; and yet you always distrust me."

"How can you say so?" said she, dropping her eyes.

"How, indeed, save that you always betray it! Come, cannot we be friends?" said he, pleasantly. "Once we might have been more, and now need we be less?"

"By no means, Cardinal, and--"

"I am always Ippolito, to _you_--"

"By no means, Cardinal; I enjoy using your t.i.tle, it is so n.o.ble, so imposing, it becomes you so well. You have taken a decided part at last, and I esteem you all the more for it. Your learning and genius will adorn your high vocation. What influence you now possess! how many look up to you! Surely your position must be an enviable one?"

A complex expression crossed his face, as he said, with emphasis,

"Very! And yours?"

"Oh, mine is what it has long been. It has its lights and its shadows."

"Shadows?"

"Not very dark ones, certainly; but three-fourths of my life are spent in a sort of dull twilight, that is--infinitely melancholy!"

"Whence proceeds that melancholy?"

"I know not. My natural disposition, perhaps. I have everything I can want or wish, yet it sometimes seems to me that there is only one thing to reconcile us to life--"

"What is that?"

"The fear of death."

"Just so," said he, abruptly.

"Can you, a churchman, tell me how to overcome that fear?"

"There is no fear of your dying--"

"Die I must, soon or late! Death comes to all. Can you, a churchman, tell me how to meet it?"

"Surely, surely! The Church has provided supports. There are the sacraments. There is absolution. There is extreme unction."

"I do not know how these may support me when the time comes. Meanwhile they do not remove the fear of death."

He looked at her earnestly for a moment, and was about to speak, but refrained. At the same time, the customary refection of wine and comfits was brought in by two of the d.u.c.h.ess's damsels, while a third brought a golden ewer of rose-water, and a fourth a basin and gold-fringed napkin. The duenna and Moorish girl were embroidering at one of the windows.

When the girls had withdrawn, the Cardinal and d.u.c.h.ess resumed their conversation, like two old and familiar friends, who had at some former period seen a good deal more of one another than of late.

He spoke of Hayraddin Barbarossa's descent upon Fondi, and minutely inquired into the particulars, and the amount of damage done. He ended with "Well, a wilful woman must have her way. All this may happen again, and with a worse end."

"Please do not frighten me," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "It is very unkind."

"I mean it for kindness, for I want to put you on your guard."

"I shall be on my guard now. My poor people have suffered sufficiently to be on the alert. And I have long thought I should like to winter at Naples. Now I have a sufficient reason for going."

"The sooner the better. Giulia, how you surprised me just now by what you said! How can one so good, so blameless as you are, be afraid of death? You have never done anything wrong. I cannot conceive you ever to have offended G.o.d, even in thought. Can _you_, then, be afraid to meet Him?"

"Ah! I am always shy of strangers; and, to me, G.o.d is such a stranger!--"

"But you _believe_ in Him, do not you? You believe that He _is_?"

"Of course! But that is so little!"

The Cardinal looked as if he thought it a good deal.

"Your nerves are weak," said he, after a pause. "Your organisation is too delicate. I should advise you to dwell as little as you can on these things."

"Oh, I speak of them to _no_ one. I don't know how I came to do so now.

Only, I suppose, because you are a friend and a churchman."

"I _like_ you so to speak. Say on."

"Why, then, I will add that, apart from this fear of death, which sometimes thrills me, and especially did so last night, is a far more permanent feeling--a desire for some higher good. An intense dissatisfaction with myself and with all the things of this life."

"Do you really suppose that that feeling is peculiar to yourself?

Everybody has it!--everybody who thinks and feels. I myself suffer martyrdom from it."

"Can you--a churchman--prescribe its remedy?"