And with the traces of the plague, other wonders of the time had disappeared. The mystery of Lorenzo di Vasari"s fate was forgotten. The desperate revenge of the outlaw Arionelli lived only in the songs of the lower cla.s.ses, or in the legends of those who still exercised his dangerous profession. The Count Arestino had long paid the debt which all men owe. His sins might, or they might not, be forgiven; but he was gone to his reckoning--had briefly, indeed, followed her whom his vengeance had sent thither perhaps too soon. The great crowd who had lived in that earlier day were now departed or departing; they gave up the post of action and existence to those who had been children in their day.
And in the Chateau Arestino now, there was feasting and all delight. It was the autumn again, and the hedges of myrtle on the banks of the Arno gave out their most delicious scent. The roses that hung faint with the noonday"s heat, gathered new life in the cool of the twilight, as they drooped their heads to drink of that fresh stream; and the last rays of the sun fell with a mellowed brightness upon the red and yellow leaves of the chestnut tree, or lingered, where the eye paused with less effort, among the dark-green branches of the olive.
And in the halls of the castle, too, there was a sound of music, and of dancing, and of revelry. And gay forms flitted lightly along its lofty corridors, or dashed in mimic pursuit, with the light step and lighter laugh of youth, through its water-side arbours and gardens. And there were gallant forms of cavaliers, their crests nodding brightly in the sun; and fair, transparent, sylph-like figures of females, their flowing drapery catching in the light breeze, and but adorning the form it seemed to hide, sported gaily through hall and bower. That day was the new lord"s wedding-day. He had wandered long abroad, unknowing of his rich inheritance. But all since his return was splendour and fitting and decoration. For he had sighed sometimes at the thought of that palace when he had little hope to possess it. And now it would become his favourite seat--he kept his day of bridal there.
And his bride was come, and her fair bridesmaids; and she was welcomed by the grey-haired domestics who hoped to live yet in ease and comfort from her bounty. And all was gaiety and sparkle. There was the light boat plied upon the river, filled with such freight as showed as though the nymphs fabled to dwell in ocean"s depths had risen to glide upon its surface. And the speckled trout checked at the long line, or snapped the brittle wand, while shouts of triumph or of laughter--equally gay--hailed his appearance above water or his escape.
And in the midst of all this tumult, the bride and her attendants, with girlish curiosity, wandered through the rich saloons, and even through every chamber in the castle. The pictures--the china--the statues--nothing was spared from their curious view. "And what was this?
and whence came that? This painting, was it from Venice or from Rome?
That armour, was it of the French or of the Danish workmanship? Those jewels too--and those rich plumes, now of past fashion, that filled the Garde-robe--whose had they been? from what great ancestor of Theodore"s had they descended?"
The attentive governante"s answer was always ready. She had the knowledge and the memory fitting to her station. The china was from one ill.u.s.trious house--the statues, in succession, from another--the armour had belonged to the first or to the third Lord of Arestino, famous for his conduct in the wars of Charlemagne, against the Saracens or elsewhere. But the jewels and plumes had been the property of the Lady Angiolina Arestino, the wife of the last Count Ubaldi, and one of the handsomest women of her time; "Who died," said the ancient governante, "on this very day forty-four years, even on the very night of the Vigil of St Luke; and on the same night that the young Chevalier di Vasari, whom some--Heaven pardon them!--accounted her lover, was basely murdered. How my lady met her death, some doubted, for the Lord Arestino was of an unforgiving temper, and severe! But it was a strange business, at least for the Chevalier and his attendant, who disappeared on that night, and no traces were ever heard of them more!"
"But the Chevalier"s body was found, was it not, good Beatrice?" said a fair Florentine girl; "I am sure I have heard that it was; and that he was one of the n.o.blest cavaliers of his time. And that is a beautiful bust--if it was like him--which stands in the Church of St Marco, on the tomb erected to his memory!"
"His _body_ was found, with your ladyship"s leave, three months after he was missing; but never the persons by whom he met his death.
And up to this time, the servant who waited on him, and who I always thought had a share in his murder, has never been heard of. Some say that there were signs of his escape to France, and that his master"s famous black horse, Bayard, was many years afterwards recognised in the capital of that country. I do not know how that was; but I just recollect the finding of the Chevalier Lorenzo"s body, poor gentleman!
He was found dead in a ravine, scarce four miles from the city; stripped of everything--naked--no doubt by those who had robbed and murdered him; and would never have been recognised but for his sword, which was found beside him, lying broken within a few yards of the spot where he fell!"
"But the Count Ubaldi----, my Lord Theodore"s ancestor--he died, too, early--did he not?" said the fair Lady Amina.
"He did, by your ladyship"s pleasure--alas! he did--soon after his lady; and her death was sudden--it was said that she was poisoned. It was all in the dreadful time of the plague, before the eldest of you, fair signoras--before your mothers almost, I might say--were born. Poor lady!
it was in this very chamber, this chamber we now stand in, that she died."
"Good Heaven!" said the Lady Amina, "in this chamber? Surely this was not the Countess Angiolina"s bed on which I am leaning?"
"Not the bed, your ladyship," said Beatrice, "but all the other furniture of the room is exactly the same. These are the pictures which used to hang in it; and the marble busts; and those fine flower-vases, of which my lady was so fond. This cabinet contained her jewels, and many of them remain still. Some of the diamonds his lordship, the count, presented to the nuns of St Agnes la Fontagna. But the turquoises are here, that my lady wore mightily, for they became her complexion. And the pearls, too; but they are spoiled, quite black with age and want of wearing! That robe-chest, too--I pray your ladyship"s pardon for the dust upon it--this house has been unused and empty so long--and servants will neglect where one is not always--that chest was her ladyship"s, and I daresay contains choice fineries, for it stood always in her chamber, and has never been opened since she died."
This last fact seemed more extraordinary than any of the wonders which had preceded it. "Has it really never been opened!" said the young Lady Olympia. "But what a pity that such beautiful ornaments should have been left to decay!"
"Never opened, may it please your ladyship; nor could it, but by violence," returned the governante. "For it is a Spanish piece of work, and was sold to my lady by a foreign merchant, who told the secret of opening it only to her. It opens, your ladyship sees, with some spring--Heaven knows where! but there is neither lock nor bolt. n.o.body could open it ever but my lady; and I am sure, since I lived in this house, I have tried a hundred times."
There could scarcely fail, in such an a.s.sembly, to be some desire as strong as the governante"s to see the fair Countess"s hidden treasure; but the having to open the chest by force was a difficulty too formidable rather to surmount. To have performed such a feat (independent of any other objection) would apparently have required strong a.s.sistance; and therefore, whatever anxiety curiosity felt, modesty checked its expression; and the gay party proceeded on their rambling review, amidst various strange conjectures as to the manner of Di Vasari"s death; or comments upon the conduct of the Count Ubaldi, and the unhappy fate of his fair lady.
But at the close of the evening, when the song rose loudest, and the feast was still enlivening the hall, there were two female forms seen to glide with lighted tapers along the oaken gallery, and enter the light-blue chamber; it was the beautiful bride--the Lady Amina--and her favourite companion, Olympia Montefiore.
The Lady Amina led the way, laughing; but there was a touch of apprehension mingled in her smile. "For Heaven"s sake," said she, pausing in the doorway, "let us go back!"
"What folly! what can we have to apprehend!" was the reply.
"But Theodore may have missed us."
"And if he has!--Is it not his wedding-night, and can anything you do displease him? Besides--to-morrow he will cause the chest to be opened himself."
"Then let us wait until to-morrow; and we can then see it."
"Yes! and then everybody will have seen it--and it will not be worth seeing!"
As the beautiful tempter pa.s.sed her companion, and knelt beside the case, her figure looked like that of Psyche, bending on the couch of Cupid.
"If we should not be able to open it after all!" said the bride, half fearful, half laughing.
"We will--depend on me," said the other, anxious and excited. "I know the secret of these Spanish chests. My father has one--they are common now in Venice--the spring is concealed--but once know the situation of it--as I do--and it is simple."
"But--I tremble all over!"
"Why, what nonsense!"
"But--I"ll go away if you don"t stop."
"But only think how we shall laugh at Lavinia and Euryanthe! Now--hold the taper. It is but one touch. Now--I have it. There!--do you see?--Now--Amina--now--hold here--help me while I lift the lid----"
Within the chest there lay a skeleton--stretched at its length, and bleached to whiteness. There was a jewel mocked one of the bony fingers; and a corslet of mail enclosed the trunk. And the right hand clutched--as though yet in question--a long and ma.s.sive dagger. Its handle was of gold embossed; its blade was of the manufacture of Damascus. And on that blade, though rusted here and there, were characters which still appeared distinctly. Their pale brightness flashed as the light of the taper fell upon them; they formed the name--and they told the fortunes--of DI VASARI.
SIGISMUND FATELLO.
BY FREDERICK HARDMAN
[_MAGA._ DECEMBER 1848.]
CHAPTER I.
THE OPERA.
It was a November night of the year 184-. For a week past the play-bills, upon the convenient but unsightly posts that disfigure the boulevards, had announced for that evening, in conspicuous capitals, the first performance of a new opera by a popular composer. Although the season of winter gaieties had scarcely begun, and country-houses and bathing-places retained a portion of the fashionable population of Paris, yet a string of elegant carriages, more or less coroneted, extended down the Rue Lepelletier, and deposited a distinguished audience at the door of the Academie de Musique. The curtain fell upon the first act; and a triple round of applause, of which a little was attributable to the merits of the opera, and a good deal to the parchment palms of a well-drilled _claque_, proclaimed the composer"s triumph and the opera"s success, when two men, entering the house at opposite sides, met near its centre, exchanged a familiar greeting, and seated themselves in contiguous stalls. Both belonged to the cla.s.s which the lower orders of Parisians figuratively designate as _gants jaunes_; the said lower orders conscientiously believing primrose gloves to be a covering as inseparable from a dandy"s fingers as the natural epidermis.
The younger of these two men, the Viscount Arthur de Mellay, was a most unexceptionable specimen of those _lions dores_ who, in modern French society, have replaced the _merveilleux_, the _roues_, and _raffines_ of former days. Sleek of face and red of lip, with confident eye and trim mustache, his "getting up" was evidently the result of deep reflection on the part of the most tasteful of tailors and scrupulous of valets.
From his varnished boot-heel to the topmost wave of his glossy and luxuriant _chevelure_, the severest critic of the mode would in vain have sought an imperfection. Born, bred, and polished in the genial atmosphere of the n.o.ble faubourg, he was a credit to his club, the admiration of the vulgar, the pet of a circle of exclusive and aristocratic dames, whose approving verdict is fashionable fame. His neighbour in the stalls, some years older than himself, was scarcely less correct in externals, although bearing his leonine honours much more carelessly. Like Arthur, he was a very handsome man, but his pale face and fair mustache contrasted with the florid cheek and dark hair of his companion. The Austrian baron Ernest von Steinfeld had acquired, by long and frequent residences in Paris, rights to Parisian naturalisation. He had first visited the French capital in a diplomatic capacity, and, after abandoning that career, had spent a part of every year there as regularly as any native _habitue_ of the Club Grammont, the Chantilly race-course, and the Bois de Boulogne. Although a German and a baron, he was neither coa.r.s.e, nor stupid, nor smoky. He did not carry a tobacco-pipe in his pocket, or get muddled at dinner, or spit upon the floor, or partic.i.p.ate in any other of the nastinesses common to the majority of his tribe. A n.o.bleman in Austria, he would have been accounted a gentleman, and a highly bred one, in any country in the world. He was of old family, had been much about courts, held a military rank, possessed a castle and fine estate in the Tyrol, mortgaged to the very last _zwanziger_ of their value, was somewhat _blase_ and troubled with the spleen, and considerably in debt, both in Vienna and Paris.
He had arrived in the latter capital but a fortnight previously, after nearly a year"s absence, had established himself in a small but elegant house in a fashionable quarter, and as he still rode fine horses, dressed and dined well, played high and paid punctually, n.o.body suspected how near he was to the end of his cash and credit: and that he had sacrificed the last remnant of his disposable property to provide ammunition for another campaign in Paris--a campaign likely to be final, unless a wealthy heiress, a prize in the lottery, or an unexpected legacy, came in the nick of time to repair his shattered fortunes.
The second act of the opera was over. The applause, again renewed, had again subsided, and the hum of conversation replaced the crash of the noisy orchestra, the warbling of Duprez, and the pa.s.sionate declamation of Madame Stolz. The house was very full; the boxes were crowded with elegantly dressed women, a few of them really pretty, a good many appearing so by the grace of gas, rouge, and costume. The curtain was no sooner down than de Mellay, compelled by the despotism of the pit to silence during the performance, dashed off at a colloquial canter, scattering, for his companion"s benefit, a shower of criticisms, witticisms, and scandal, for which he found abundant subjects amongst his acquaintances in the theatre, and to which the baron listened with the curled lip and faint smile of one for whose palled palate caviare no longer has flavour, scarcely vouchsafing an occasional monosyllable or brief sentence when Arthur"s gossip seemed to require reply. His eyes wandered round the house, their vision aided by the double gla.s.ses of one of those tremendous opera-telescopes by whose magnifying powers, it is said, the incipient wrinkle and the borrowed tint are infallibly detected, and the very _tricot_ of Taglioni is converted into a cobweb.
Presently he touched the arm of Arthur, who had just commenced an animated ocular flirtation with a blue-eyed belle in a stage-box. The baron called his attention to a box on the opposite side of the theatre.
"There is a curious group," he said.
"Oh, yes," replied de Mellay, carelessly, levelling his gla.s.s for a moment in the direction pointed out. "The Fatellos." And he resumed his mute correspondence with the dame of the azure eyes.
Steinfeld remained for a short s.p.a.ce silent, with the thoughtful puzzled air of a man who suspects he has forgotten something he ought to remember; but his efforts of memory were all in vain, and he again interrupted Arthur"s agreeable occupation.
"Whom did you say?" he inquired; indicating, by a glance rather than by a movement, the group that had riveted his attention.
"The Fatellos," replied de Mellay, with a sort of surprise. "But, pshaw!
I forget. You were at Venice last carnival, and they have not been twelve months at Paris. You have still to learn the affecting romance of Sigismund and Catalina: how the red knight from Franconie did carry off the Paynim"s daughter,--his weapons adapted to the century--bank-notes and bright doubloons, in lieu of couched lance and trenchant blade. Why, when they arrived, all Paris talked of them for three days, and might have talked longer, had not Admiral Joinville brought over from Barbary two uncommonly large baboons, which diverted the public attention. They call them Beauty and the Beast--the Fatellos, I mean, not the baboons."