“Why dost thou tremble, my pretty one!” said her companion, who might have told some five-and-forty years, and whose garb and voice bespoke her of inferior rank to the younger female. “The streets seem quiet enough now, and, the Virgin be praised! we are not so far from home either.”
“Oh, Benedetta, it is he! it is the young signor—it is Adrian!”
“That is fortunate,” said the nurse, for such was her condition, “since they say he is as bold as a Northman: and as the Palazzo Colonna is not very far from hence, we shall be within reach of his aid should we want it: that is to say, sweet one, if you will walk a little slower than you have yet done.”
The young lady slackened her pace, and sighed.
“He is certainly very handsome,” quoth the nurse: “but thou must not think more of him; he is too far above thee for marriage, and for aught else, thou art too honest, and thy brother too proud—”
“And thou, Benedetta, art too quick with thy tongue. How canst thou talk thus, when thou knowest he hath never, since, at least, I was a mere child, even addressed me: nay, he scarce knows of my very existence. He, the Lord Adrian di Castello, dream of the poor Irene! The mere thought is madness!”
“Then why,” said the nurse, briskly, “dost thou dream of him?”
Her companion sighed again more deeply than at first.
“Holy St. Catherine!” continued Benedetta, “if there were but one man in the world, I would die single ere I would think of him, until, at least, he had kissed my hand twice, and left it my own fault if it were not my lips instead.”
The young lady still replied not.
“But how didst thou contrive to love him?” asked the nurse. “Thou canst not have seen him very often: it is but some four or five weeks since his return to Rome.”
“Oh, how dull art thou?” answered the fair Irene. “Have I not told thee again and again, that I loved him six years ago?”
“When thou hadst told but thy tenth year, and a doll would have been thy most suitable lover! As I am a Christian, Signora, thou hast made good use of thy time.
“And during his absence,” continued the girl, fondly, yet sadly, “did I not hear him spoken of, and was not the mere sound of his name like a love-gift that bade me remember? And when they praised him, have I not rejoiced? and when they blamed him, have I not resented? and when they said that his lance was victorious in the tourney, did I not weep with pride? and when they whispered that his vows were welcome in the bower, wept I not as fervently with grief? Have not the six years of his absence been a dream, and was not his return a waking into light—a morning of glory and the sun? and I see him now in the church when he wots not of me; and on his happy steed as he passes by my lattice: and is not that enough of happiness for love?”
“But if he loves not thee?”
“Fool! I ask not that;—nay, I know not if I wish it. Perhaps I would rather dream of him, such as I would have him, than know him for what he is. He might be unkind, or ungenerous, or love me but little; rather would I not be loved at all, than loved coldly, and eat away my heart by comparing it with his. I can love him now as something abstract, unreal, and divine: but what would be my shame, my grief, if I were to find him less than I have imagined! Then, indeed, my life would have been wasted; then, indeed, the beauty of the earth would be gone!”
The good nurse was not very capable of sympathizing with sentiments like these. Even had their characters been more alike, their disparity of age would have rendered such sympathy impossible. What but youth can echo back the soul of youth—all the music of its wild vanities and romantic follies? The good nurse did not sympathize with the sentiments of her young lady, but she sympathised with the deep earnestness with which they were expressed. She thought it wondrous silly, but wondrous moving; she wiped her eyes with the corner of her veil, and hoped in her secret heart that her young charge would soon get a real husband to put such unsubstantial fantasies out of her head. There was a short pause in their conversation, when, just where two streets crossed one another, there was heard a loud noise of laughing voices and trampling feet. Torches were seen on high affronting the pale light of the moon; and, at a very short distance from the two females, in the cross street, advanced a company of seven or eight men, bearing, as seen by the red light of the torches, the formidable badge of the Orsini.
Amidst the other disorders of the time, it was no unfrequent custom for the younger or more dissolute of the nobles, in small and armed companies, to parade the streets at night, seeking occasion for a licentious gallantry among the cowering citizens, or a skirmish at arms with some rival stragglers of their own order. Such a band had Irene and her companion now chanced to encounter.
“Holy mother!” cried Benedetta, turning pale, and half running, “what curse has befallen us? How could we have been so foolish as to tarry so late at the lady Nina’s! Run, Signora,—run, or we shall fall into their hands!”
But the advice of Benedetta came too late,—the fluttering garments of the women had been already descried: in a moment more they were surrounded by the marauders. A rude hand tore aside Benedetta’s veil, and at sight of features, which, if time had not spared, it could never very materially injure, the rough aggressor cast the poor nurse against the wall with a curse, which was echoed by a loud laugh from his comrades.
“Thou hast a fine fortune in faces Giuseppe!”
“Yes; it was but the other day that he seized on a girl of sixty.”
“And then, by way of improving her beauty, cut her across the face with his dagger, because she was not sixteen!”
“Hush, fellows! whom have we here?” said the chief of the party, a man richly dressed, and who, though bordering upon middle age, had only the more accustomed himself to the excesses of youth; as he spoke, he snatched the trembling Irene from the grasp of his followers. “Ho, there! the torches! Oh che bella faccia! what blushes—what eyes!—nay, look not down, pretty one; thou needst not be ashamed to win the love of an Orsini—yes; know the triumph thou hast achieved—it is Martino di Porto who bids thee smile upon him!”
“For the blest Mother’s sake release me! Nay, sir, this must not be—I am not unfriended—this insult shall not pass!”
“Hark to her silver chiding; it is better than my best hound’s bay! This adventure is worth a month’s watching. What! will you not come?—restive—shrieks too!—Francesco, Pietro, ye are the gentlest of the band. Wrap her veil around her,—muffle this music;—so! bear her before me to the palace, and tomorrow, sweet one, thou shalt go home with a basket of florins which thou mayest say thou hast bought at market.”
But Irene’s shrieks, Irene’s struggles, had already brought succour to her side, and, as Adrian approached the spot, the nurse flung herself on her knees before him.
“Oh, sweet signor, for Christ’s grace save us! Deliver my young mistress—her friends love you well! We are all for the Colonna, my lord; yes, indeed, all for the Colonna! Save the kin of your own clients, gracious signor!”
“It is enough that she is a woman,” answered Adrian, adding, between his teeth, “and that an Orsini is her assailant.” He strode haughtily into the thickest of the group; the servitors laid hands on their swords, but gave way before him as they recognised his person; he reached the two men who had already seized Irene; in one moment he struck the foremost to the ground, in another, he had passed his left arm round the light and slender form of the maiden, and stood confronting the Orsini with his drawn blade, which, however, he pointed to the ground.
“For shame, my lord—for shame!” said he, indignantly. “Will you force Rome to rise, to a man, against our order? Vex not too far the lion, chained though he be; war against us if ye will! draw your blades upon men, though they be of your own race, and speak your own tongue: