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A Siren

T >> Thomas Adolphus Trollope >> A Siren




"Yet you live here, from year's end to year's end all alone, Padre
mio," said Paolina, timidly.

"Not quite so, daughter," replied he. "Brother Barnaba, a lay
brother of our order, is my companion. But he is ill with a touch of
ague at present."

"And how early would it be not inconvenient to you, Padre mio, to
open the church for me?" asked Paolina.

"I spoke not of your being early on my account, daughter. If you
come here at sunrise, you will find the gate open, and me where you
found me this morning; and if you come at midnight you will find the
same."

"At midnight, father!" said Paolina, with a glance of surprise and
pity.

"Last October I was down with the fever," returned the monk; "but
since that time I have not failed one night to be on my knees where
the blessed St. Romauld knelt at the stroke of midnight. But I have
not had his reward;--doubtless because I am not worthy of it."

"What was the reward of St. Romauld, father?" demanded Paolina.

"His midnight prayers were rewarded by the vision of St. Apollinare
in glory, who spoke to him, and gave him the counsel he sought.
Night after night, and hour after hour, have I knelt and prayed. And
I have heard the moaning of the wind from the Adriatic among the
pines of the forest yonder, and I have seen the great crucifix above
the high altar sway and move in the moonlight when it comes
streaming through the southern windows; and sometimes I have hoped--
and prayed--and hoped--but no vision came!"

The old monk sighed, and dropped his head upon his bosom; and
Paolina gazed at him with a feeling of awe, mingled with a suddenly
rising fear, that the tall and emaciated old man, whose light-blue
eyes gleamed out from beneath his cowl, was not wholly right in his
mind. She would have been more alarmed had she been aware that the
old Padre Fabiano of St. Apollinare was generally considered in
Ravenna to be crazed by all those who did not, instead of that, deem
him a saint.

Before she had gained courage to answer him, however, he lifted his
head, with another deep sigh, and said, in a very quiet and ordinary
tone and manner,

"Your scaffold is all prepared for you there, Signora, according to
the directions of the Signor Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare, who
brought with him an order from the Archbishop's Chancellor. Will you
look at it, and see if it is as you wish, and say where you wish to
have it placed."

The mosaics in the apse of the centre nave are the most remarkable
of those that remain at St. Apollinare, though many of the series of
medallion portraits of the Bishops of the See from the foundation of
it, which circle the entire nave, are very curious. Paolina had
engaged to copy two or three of the most remarkable of these; but
she intended to begin her work by attacking the larger figures in
the apse. And the scaffolding had been placed there on the southern
side.

"I think that is just where I should wish to have it," said Paolina,
looking up at the vault. "If I may, I will go up and see whether it
is near enough to the figure I have to copy."

"Do so, my daughter. It looks a great height, but I have no doubt
that it is quite safe. The Signor Marchese was very particular in
seeing to it himself. See, I will go up first to give you courage."

And so saying, the old man with a slow but firm step began to ascend
the ladder of the scaffolding. And when he had reached the platform
at the top, Paolina, more used to such climbing than he, and who in
truth had felt no alarm whatever, followed him with a lighter step.

"Yes, this will do nicely, Padre mio!" she said, when she had
reached the top; "it is placed just where it should be, and this
large window gives just all the light I want. It is a much better
light than I had to work by in San Vitale."

"I never was in San Vitale," replied the monk. "I have been here
fourteen years next Easter, and I have never once been in Ravenna in
all that time, nor, indeed, further away from this church than just
a stroll within the edge of the Pineta."

"That is the Pineta we see from this window, of course, Padre mio.
What a lovely view of it! And how beautiful it is! Where does that
road go to, Padre? To Venice?"

"No, figliuola mia. It goes in exactly the opposite direction,
southwards, to Cervia. The Venice road lies away to the northward,
through the wood that you can see on the furthest horizon. It was by
that road I came to Ravenna. I shall never travel it again."

"From Venice, father? Did you come from Venice?" asked Paolina,
eagerly.

"From La bella Venezia I came, daughter--fourteen years ago. And
once in every month I indulge myself by going to the top of our
tower--you can't see it from this window, it is on the northern side
of the church--and looking out over the north Pineta as far as I can
see towards it. May God and St. Mark grant that no tempter ever
offer me the sight of Venice again at the price of my soul's
salvation! I shall never, never see Venice more!"

"You must be a Venetian, father, surely, to love it so well?" said
Paolina, after a minute or two of silence.

"A Venetian I am--or was, daughter; as I well knew you were when you
first spoke. Might I ask your name?"

"Paolina Foscarelli, father. I am an orphan," said she, softly.

"No!" said the monk, shaking his head, with a deep sigh, and looking
earnestly into the girl's face, but without any appearance of
surprise,--"No; you are not Paolina Foscarelli."

"Indeed, father, that is my name," said Paolina, again recurring to
her doubt whether the monk was altogether of sound mind, and
speaking very quietly and gently; "my father's name was Foscarelli,
and the baptismal name of my mother was the same as mine--Paolina."

"Jacopo and Paolina Foscarelli, who lived in the little house at the
corner of the Campo di San Pietro and Paolo," rejoined the monk,
speaking in a dreamy far-away kind of manner.

"I have truly heard that they lived there," said she; "but I was
only four years old when they died, one very soon after the other,
and since that I have lived with a friend of my mother's, Signora
Steno."

"The child of Jacopo and Paolina Foscarelli," said the monk, in the
same dreamy tone, and pressing his thin emaciated hands before his
eyes as he spoke; "and you have come here to find me?"

"Nay, father, not to find you. I knew not that the padre guardiano
of St. Apollinare was a Venetian. I came only to copy these pictures
for my employer."

"Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful are the ways of God! Paolina
Foscarelli, daughter of Jacopo and Paolina, I Fabiano---"

"Look, padre min!" cried Paolina, suddenly and sharply, turning very
pale, and grasping the parapet rung of the scaffolding as she spoke,
"look! in the bagarino there on the road, just passing the church;
certainly that must be the Signor Marchese Ludovico!--And with him--
that lady?--yes, it is--it certainly is La Lalli--the prima donna,
who has been singing at the theatre this Carnival."

She pointed as she spoke to a bagarino that had just passed the
western front of the church, and was now moving along the bit of
road visible from the high window at which the monk and Paolina were
standing.

The tone in which she spoke caused the friar to look at her first,
before turning his glance in the direction to which she pointed. She
was pale, and evidently much moved, after a fashion that, taken
together with the nature of the objects to which she drew his
attention, and the fact that it was the Marchese Ludovico who had
come to St. Apollinare to make the arrangements needed for the
artist's work there, left but little doubt in the old man's mind as
to the nature of her emotion.

He looked shrewdly and earnestly into her face for a moment; and
then turning his eyes to the stretch of road below, answered her:

"Certainly, my daughter, that is the Marchese Ludovico. The lady I
never saw before as far as I am aware. They are going towards
Cervia."

"No! See, father! They are turning off from the road to the left.
Where does that turning to the left go?"

"Only into the forest, daughter,--or to that little farm-house you
see there just at the edge of it. You may get as far as the sea-
shore through the Pineta; but the road is very bad for a carriage."

"To the sea-shorn!" said Paolina, dreamily.

"Yes, by keeping the track due east. The shore is not above a couple
of miles away. But there is no port, or even landing-place there.
And there are many tracks through the forest. You may get to Cervia,
too, that way. But it is hardly likely that any one would leave the
road to find a longer way by worse ways through the forest. More
likely the object of the Signor Marchese is only to show the lady
the famous Pineta."

Paolina, while the monk was thus speaking, had kept her eyes fixed
upon the little carriage, which was making its way along a by-road
constructed on the top of a dike by the side of one of the numerous
streams that intersect all the district; and she continued to watch
it till she saw it stop at the entrance to the yard of the little
farmhouse, to which the monk had called her attention. She then saw
Ludovico and his companion descend from the carriage, and leave it
apparently in the charge of a man, who came out from the farm-yard.
And they then left the spot where they had alighted on foot, and in
another minute were no longer visible from the window at which
Paolina and the monk stood.

"How long a walk is it, father, from here into the wood?" asked
Paolina, musingly.

"It is a very short distance, daughter. There is a footpath
practicable in dry weather like this, a good deal nearer than the
road we saw the bagarino follow. You might get to the edge of the
Pineta in that way in less than ten minutes."

"And would it be possible to return to the city that way, instead of
coming back to the road?" enquired Paolina.

"Yes; for a part of the way there is a path along the border of the
wood. Then you must fall back into the road. The way lies by the
gate of the farm-house."

"I think I will go back to the city now, father. This scaffold is
just where it will suit me. And tomorrow, a little later perhaps
than this, I hope to come and begin my work. I shall have to come in
a carriage, at all events, the first time, because of bringing my
things. I am so much obliged to you, father, for your kindness. And
I am so glad that you are a Venetian. I little thought to find a
fellow-countryman here."

"Or I to see this morning a Venetian--much less--but we will speak
more of that another time--if you will permit an old man sometimes
to speak to you when you are at your work?"

"Ma come--I can talk while I work. It will be a real pleasure to me
to hear the dear home tongue. I will go down the ladder first. I am
not the least afraid."

So Paolina left the church, and the monk stood at the yawning ever-
open western door, looking after her as she took the path he had
indicated to her towards the forest.



CHAPTER V

"The Hours passed, and still she came not"


There was misgiving in the heart of the old man as he stood at the
door of the Basilica looking after the light little form of Paolina
as she moved along the path, raised above the swamp on either side,
that led towards the edge of the forest.

The rays of the sun slanting from the eastward lighted up all the
path on which she was walking; and though the western front of the
church was still in shade, had begun to suck up the mists, and to
make the air feel at least somewhat more genial and wholesome. The
monk pushed back the cowl of his frock, which had hitherto been
drawn over his head, the better to watch the receding figure of the
girl as she moved slowly along the path; and still, as he gazed
after her, he shook his head from time to time with an uneasy sense
of misgiving.

It was not that the mere fact of the girl's entering the Pineta
alone seemed to him, accustomed as he was to the place and its
surroundings, to involve any danger to her of any sort, beyond,
indeed, the possibility of losing herself for a few hours in the
forest. The whole extent of it is very frequently traversed by the
men in the employment of the farmers to whom the Papal government
was in the practice of letting out the right of pasturage and
management of the wood. And these people were all known. There were,
it is true, encroachers on these rights, who might well be less
known, and less responsible persons; and possibly the forest paths
might sometimes be traversed by people bound on some errand of
smuggling. But nothing had ever happened of late years in the forest
to suggest the probability of any danger.

It was rather the nature of Paolina's own motives for her
expedition, as they were patent to the old monk, that disquieted him
on her behalf. He had marked the expression of her face when she had
seen the bagarino with Ludovico and his companion pass along the
road towards the forest, and the change in her whole manner after
that. And monk, and octogenarian as he was, he had been at no loss
to comprehend the nature of the emotions which had been aroused in
her mind by the sight. And he feared that evil might arise from the
collision of passions, which it seemed likely were about to be
brought into the presence of each other.

Perhaps, monk and aged as he was, the apprehensions with which his
mind was busy seemed more big with possible evil than they might to
another. Perhaps it was so long since he had had aught to do with
stormy passions that the contemplation of them affrighted his
stagnant mind all the more by reason of the long years of
passionless placidity to which it was accustomed. Perhaps he had
known passions stormy enough in the long long past, and had
experience of the harvest of evils which might be expected to be
produced by them.

Report said, that when Father Fabiano had been sent by his superiors
to occupy the miserable and forlorn sentinel's post at the church-
door of St. Apollinare, amid inundations in winter, and fever and
ague in summer, his appointment to the dreary office had been of the
nature of a penance and an exile. It was said, too, that the
sentence of exile, which placed him in his present position, had
been an alleviation of a more rigorous punishment; that he had been
allowed, after a period of many years of imprisonment in a monastery
of his order at Venice, to change that punishment for the duty to
which he had been appointed, and which would scarcely have seemed an
amelioration of destiny to any one save a man who had for years been
deprived of the light of the sun and the scent of the free air. Some
deed there had been in that life which had called for such monastic
discipline; some outcome of human passion when the blood, that now
crept slowly, while the aged monk passed the hours in waiting for
visions before the altar of St. Apollinare, was running in his veins
too rapidly for monastic requirements.

It was evident from the few words that he had let drop, when he
became aware who the young Venetian visitor to the church under his
care was, that some special circumstances caused him to feel a more
than ordinary interest in her. Some connection there must have been
between some portion of his life and that of some member or members
of her family. Of what nature was it? Monkish tribunals, however
else they may treat those subjected to them, at least keep their
secrets. Frailties must be expiated; but they need not be exposed.
And the true story of the fault which condemned Father Fabiano to
end his days amid the swamps of St. Apollinare, as well as the
precise nature of the connection which had existed between him and
Paolina's parents, can be only matter of conjecture.

Paolina, as has been said, pursued her path slowly. She had tripped
along much more lightly on her way from the city to St. Apollinare.
And yet she was urged on by a burning anxiety to know whither
Ludovico and Bianca had gone, and for what purpose they had come
thither. But, despite this nervous anxiety, she stepped slowly,
because her heart disapproved of the course she was taking. It
seemed as if she was drawn on towards the forest by some mysterious
mechanical force, which she had not the strength to resist. Again
and again she had well nigh made up her mind to turn aside from the
path she was following. She would go only a few steps further
towards the edge of the forest. She looked out eagerly before her,
standing on tip-toe on every little bit of vantage ground which the
path afforded. She would only go as far as that next bend in the
path. But the bend in the path disclosed a stile a little further
on, from which surely a view of all the ground between the path she
was on and the farmhouse at which Ludovico and his companion had
descended, might be had. She would go so far and no further. And
thus, poor child, she went on and on, long and long after the monk
had lost sight of her, and with a deep sigh, had turned to go back
again into the church.

It had been six o'clock when Paolina started on her walk to the
church, and nothing had been settled with any accuracy between her
and the old friend and protectress, with whom she had come to
Ravenna, and lived during her stay there, as to the exact time at
which she might be expected to return. The name of the protectress
in question was Signora Orsola Steno, an old friend of her mother's,
who, when Paolina Foscarelli had been left an orphan, had, for pure
charity and friendship's sake, taken the child, and brought her up.
Latterly, by the exercise of the talent inherited from her father,
Paolina had been able to do something, not only towards meeting her
own expenses, but towards making some return for all that the good
Orsola had done for her out of her own poverty. And now this
commission of the Englishman who had sent her to Ravenna would go
far towards improving the prospects of both Paolina and her old
friend.

Old Orsola did not know exactly at what time to expect Paolina back;
but she knew that Paolina's purpose on that Ash Wednesday morning
was merely to walk to the church, and, having seen the preparations
that had been made for her work, to return, without on that occasion
remaining to begin her task. So that when the hour of the midday
meal arrived, and her young friend had not returned, old Orsola
began to be a little uneasy about her.

Nor was her uneasiness lessened by her entire ignorance as to there
being little or much, or no cause at all for it. Never having left
Venice before in her life, old Orsola was as much a stranger in
Ravenna, and felt herself to be in an unknown world, as completely
as an Englishman would in Japan. Since she had been in Ravenna she
had frequently heard the Pineta spoken of, and the old church out
there in which her young friend was to do a portion of her task. But
she had heard them both mentioned as strange and wild places, not
exactly like all the rest of the world. And the old woman felt,
that, for aught she knew, this Pineta, and the old church in the
wilderness on the borders of it, might be a place full of dangers
for a young girl all by herself.

And as the hours crept on, and no Paolina came, her uneasiness
increased till she felt it impossible to sit quietly at home waiting
for her any longer. She must go out, and--do what? The poor old
woman did not in the least know what to do; or of whom to make any
inquiry. The only person with whom the two Venetian strangers had
become at all intimate in Ravenna was the Marchese Ludovico. And the
only step in her difficulty which old Orsola could think of taking,
after much doubt and hesitation, was to go to the Palazzo
Castelmare, and endeavour to speak with the Marchesino. The letter
of introduction, which they had brought from the English patron, was
addressed to the Marchese Lamberto. But the acquaintance of the
Venetians with him had remained very slight; and Orsola felt so much
awe of so grand and reverend a Signor, that it was to the nephew
only that she thought of applying.

So, not without much doubt and misgiving, the old woman put on her
bonnet and cloak and made the best of her way to the Castelmare
palace. There she found a porter lounging before the door, to whom
she made her petition to be allowed to speak to the Signor Marchese
Ludovico.

"My name is Orsola Steno," said the old woman humbly, a little in
awe of the majestic porter, chosen for that situation for his size;
"and the Signor Marchesino knows me very well. I am sure he would
not refuse to see me."

Insolent servants in a great house are generally a sure symptom of
something amiss in the moral nature of their masters. Good and
kindly masters have and make civil and kindly servants; and the big
porter of the palazzo Castelmare was accordingly by no means a
terrible personage.

"Signora Orsola Steno! To be sure. I remember you very well,
Signora, when you called on the padrone last summer. I am sure the
Signor Marchesino would have pleasure in seeing you, if he were at
home. But he is not here. And to tell you the truth, we have no idea
where he is. He came home early this morning after the ball, and
instead of going to bed, changed his dress, and went out again at
once; and has not been back since. Some devilry or other! Che vuole!
We were all young once upon a time, eh, Signora Orsola? And as for
the Marchesino, he is as good a gentleman as any in Ravenna or out
of it, for that matter. But he is young, Signora, he is young! And
that's all the fault he has. Can I give him any message for you,
Signora?"

"The fact is," said old Orsola, after a few moments of rapid
reflection as to the expediency of telling her trouble to the
porter, and a decision prompted by the good-natured manner of the
man, and by the poor woman's extreme need of some one to tell her
trouble to,--"the fact is, that I wanted to ask the advice of the
Signor Marchesino about a young friend of mine, the Signora Paolina
Foscarelli, who went out of the city early this morning to go to St.
Apollinare in Classe, and ought to have been back hours ago. And I
am quite uneasy about her."

"Why, your trouble, Signora, is of a piece with our own," said the
porter, with a burly laugh; "and it seems to me like enough we can
help each other. You miss a young lady; and we miss a young
gentleman. When I used to go out into the marshes a-shooting with
the Marchese, we used to be sure, when we had put up the cock bird,
that the hen was not far off; or, if we got the hen, we knew we had
not far to look for the cock. Do you see, Signora? Two to one the
pair of runaways are together; and they'll come home safe enough
when they've had their fun out. I dare say the Signor Marchesino and
the Signorina you speak of are old friends?"

"Why, yes, Signore. For that matter they are old friends!" replied
Orsola, adopting the porter's phrase for want of one which could
express the meaning she had in her mind more desirably.

"To be sure--to be sure. And if you will take my advice, Signora,
you will go home, and give yourself no trouble at all about the
young lady. Lord bless us! what though 'tis Lenten-tide? Young folks
will be young, Signora Orsola. They'll come home safe enough. And
maybe I might as well say nothing to the Signor Marchesino about
your coming here, you know. When folks have come to that time of
life, Signora, as brings sense with it, they mostly learn that least
said is soonest mended," said the old porter, with a nod of deep
meaning.

And Signora Orsola was fain to take the porter's advice, so far as
returning to her home went. But it was not equally easy to give
herself no further trouble about Paolina. It might be as the porter
said; and if she could have been sure that it was so the old lady
would have been perfectly easy. But it was not at all like Paolina
to have planned such an escapade without telling her old friend
anything about it. She felt sure that when Paolina said she was
going to St. Apollinare to look after the preparations for her
copying there, she had no other or further intention in her
thoughts. To be sure there was the possibility that Ludovico might
have known her purpose of going thither, and might have planned to
accompany her on her expedition, without having apprized her of any
such scheme. And it might not be unlikely that in such a case they
had been tempted to spend a few hours in the Pineta. And with these
possibilities Signora Steno was obliged to tranquillize herself as
she best might.

She returned home not without some hope that she might find that
Paolina had returned during her absence; but such was not the case--
Paolina was still absent. And though it was now some eight or nine
hours from the time she had left home, old Orsola had nothing for it
but to wait for tidings of her as patiently as she could.



CHAPTER VI

Gigia's Opinion


The aged monk of St. Apollinare, after watching Paolina as she
departed from the Basilica, and took the path towards the forest,
returned into the church to his devotions at the altar of the saint,
as has been said. But he found himself unable to concentrate his
attention as usual, not on the meaning of the words of the litanies
he uttered,--that, it may be imagined, few such worshippers do, or
even attempt to do,--but on such devotional thoughts as, on other
occasions, constituted his mental attitude during the hours he spent
before the altar.

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