Chapter 12. A Ghostly Visitant

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_ CHAPTER XII. A GHOSTLY VISITANT

It was the irony of fate that the mansion which had been assigned as a permanent dwelling-place to the woman condemned to a life of asceticism, had been originally fitted up as a fairy love-palace for a beautiful creature, possessed of an unquenchable thirst for the fleeting joys of this earthly existence. Over the richly carved mantelpiece in Blanka's sleeping-room was what looked like a splendid bas-relief in marble. It was in reality no bas-relief at all, but a wonderfully skilful bit of painting, so cleverly imitating the sculptor's chisel that even a closer inspection failed to detect the deception. It represented a recumbent Sappho playing on a nine-stringed lyre. The opening in the sounding-board of the instrument appeared to be a veritable hole over which real strings were stretched.

This painting Blanka had before her eyes when she lay down to sleep at night, and it was the first to greet her when she awoke in the morning. Nor was it simply that she was forced to see it: Sappho seemed able to make her presence known by other means than by addressing the sight alone. Mysterious sounds came at times from the lyre,--sometimes simple chords, and again snatches of love-songs which the princess could have played over afterward from memory, so plainly did she seem to hear them. Occasionally, too, the notes of a human voice were heard; and though the words were muffled and indistinct, as if coming from a distance, the air was easily followed. These weird melodies came to Blanka's ears nearly every evening, but she did not venture to tell any one about them. She tried to persuade herself it was all imagination on her part, and feared to relate her experience, lest she should incur suspicion of insanity and be consigned to a less desirable prison than the Cagliari palace.

One evening, as she was preparing to retire, and was standing for a moment before her mirror, the Sappho seemed to give vent to a ripple of laughter. The princess was so startled that she dropped the candle she held in her hand. Once more she heard that mysterious laugh, and then she beat a hasty retreat to her bed and buried herself in the pillows and blankets. But, peeping out at length and throwing one more glance at the picture, which was faintly illumined by her night-lamp, she heard still another repetition of the mysterious laughter, coming apparently from a great distance. Was this, too, an illusion, a dream, a trick of her imagination? If the painted Sappho was alive, why did she give these signs only at night, and not in the daytime as well?

November came, and with it rainy days, so that Blanka was constrained to suspend her drives to Monte Mario and remain in the house. Every evening she sat before her open fire with her eyes fixed on the glowing phoenix with which the back of the fireplace was adorned. It was the work of Finiguerra, the first of his craft to discard the chisel for the hammer. The many-hued feathers of the flaming bird were of steel, copper, brass, Corinthian bronze, silver, and gold. Especially resplendent was the bird's head, with its gleaming red circle around the brightly shining eye. This eye glowed and sparkled in the flickering light of the crackling wood fire until it seemed fairly endowed with life and vision.

One evening, as the princess was watching this glowing eye, it suddenly vanished from the bird's head and left a dark hole in its place. Then, as if not content with this marvellous demonstration, the phoenix next took flight bodily and disappeared, apparently up the chimney, with a rattling, rasping sound, as of the creaking of cogged wheels, leaving a wide opening where it had been. The coals which still glowed on the hearth presently died with a hissing noise, and only the soft light of the shaded lamp diffused itself through the room. Out of the mysterious depths of the fireplace stepped the white-clad form of a woman.

"I am the Marchioness Caldariva," announced the unbidden guest.

The suddenness and the mystery of it all, as well as the name that greeted her ears, might well have startled the Princess Blanka. The strange visitor was of tall and slender form, and suggested, in her closely fitting gown of soft material, a statue of one of the pagan goddesses. Her thick blond hair was carelessly gathered into a knot behind; her complexion was pale, her blue eyes were bright and vivacious, and her coral lips were parted in a coquettish smile. Every movement was fraught with grace and charm, every pose commanded admiration. She followed up her self-introduction with a laugh--a laugh that sounded familiar to her listener. It was the Sappho's tones that she heard. Blanka gazed in wonder at the mysterious apparition. She thought she must be dreaming, and that this was but another creation of her own fancy.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the visitor, "an original way to pay a call, isn't it?--without warning, right through the back wall of your fireplace, and in _neglige_, too! But as you wouldn't visit me, I had to come to you, and this is the readiest communication between our apartments. You didn't know anything about it, did you? The back of your fireplace is a secret door. If you press on the green tile here at the left, the phoenix flies up the chimney, and then if you bear down hard on this one at the right, it returns to its place again. Do you see?"

As she spoke the white lady stepped on the tile last designated, and straightway the phoenix descended and filled the opening through which she had just made her entrance.

"On the other side," she continued, "is a piece of mechanism which will only work when a secret lock has been opened, and to effect this the bird's eye must first be pushed aside to make room for the key. Your ignorance of all this became apparent to me when I found both of the two keys in my room. One of them belongs to you, and I have brought it to give you. Without it you might be broken in upon most unpleasantly by some unwelcome intruder. But with the key in your possession, you can insert it in the lock whenever you wish to guard against any such intrusion."

With that the speaker handed over the key, and then went on:

"Now you will be able to visit me, just as I do you. One thing more, however, is necessary. You generally have a fire in your fireplace, and not every woman is a Saint Euphrosyne, able to walk barefoot over glowing coals. Here is a little bottle of liquid with which you can quench the flames at pleasure. It is a chemical mixture expressly prepared for this purpose. And in this other bottle is another liquid for rekindling the fire,--no secret of chemistry, this time, but only naphtha. Let us try it at once, for your room is cold and I have nothing on but this dressing-gown."

The flames were soon crackling merrily again in the fireplace. Blanka, much bewildered and still doubting the evidence of her senses, sank down on a sofa, while her unbidden guest seated herself opposite. The princess raised her eyes involuntarily to the Sappho over the mantelpiece. Again the familiar laugh fell on her ears.

"You look up at the Sappho," said the marchioness. "You have heard her play and sing and laugh more than once, haven't you? Well, you shall learn the secret of it all. A jealous husband once had the passage constructed which connects our two apartments. You know the story of Dionysius's Ear. Here you see it in real life. A hollow tube runs from the opening in the lyre directly to my room, and through this the jealous husband was able to hear every sound in his wife's chamber. Through it, too, you have heard me sing and play and laugh, and I have heard tones of sadness from your room, and exclamations in an unknown tongue, with no cheering word to comfort you and drive away your sorrow. Three days ago, about midnight, you began to sing, and that time I could follow the words,--'_De profundis ad te clamavi, Domine.'_ Don't look so surprised. You are not dreaming all this, and I am really the Marchioness Caldariva, better known as 'the beautiful Cyrene.' I have intruded on you this evening, but to-morrow you will admit me of your own free will, and the day after you shall be my guest. We will signal to each other through the tube when we are alone and disengaged, and we shall soon be great friends."

Blanka started slightly at the bare thought of friendship with this woman.

"I am in love with you already," continued the Marchioness Caldariva. "For the past week we have been meeting every day. We kneel side by side in the same church, for I go to church regularly; but you have not noticed me, because you never raise your eyes from your prayer-book to look at your neighbours' bonnets and gowns. As for me, now, I watch you all the time I am praying. Daily prayers are a necessity with me. In the morning I pray for the sins I have committed the day before, and in the evening for those to be committed on the morrow. Another bond of sympathy between us is the similar lot to which we are both condemned,--a life unblessed by domestic happiness,--and we cherish therefore a common hatred of the world. You, however, show yours by leading a solitary life of mourning, I mine by amusing myself the best way I can. If I were strong enough to follow your example, I should do so, but I can't live without distraction. You are strong; I am weak. I admire in you your power to humble your enemies before you. You were told, weren't you, that I wrote that anonymous letter?"

Blanka looked at the speaker with wide eyes of inquiry and wonder. She began at length to place confidence in her words.

"And you were told the truth, too," continued the other. "Oh, those two men are intriguers of the deepest dye. I was accused of upsetting their plan. I was told how mercilessly you had repulsed one of them. Really, that was a master stroke on your part. The fourteenth paragraph! He himself confessed the secret to me,--how he forged a note, some years ago, in the name of a good friend of his, who now holds the incriminating document in his possession. With it he can at any time crush his false friend and deliver him over to a long imprisonment. The trembling culprit wished to free himself at any cost from this sword of Damocles suspended over his head, and he proposed to me two ways to effect the desired end. One was for me to seduce the young artist and then, as the price of my smiles, cajole him into surrendering the fatal note."

The beautiful Cyrene threw at her listener a look full of the proud consciousness of her own dangerous charms. Blanka drew back in nameless fear under her gaze.

"The other way," proceeded the marchioness, "was to have him assassinated if he refused to give up the forged paper."

Blanka pressed her hands to her bosom to keep from crying out.

"Between these two plans I was asked to choose, and I rejected them both,--the first because I knew the young man adored you, the second because I knew you reciprocated his feeling."

The princess rose hastily and walked across the room, seeking to hide her tell-tale blushes.

"Come," said the marchioness, lightly, "sit down again and let us laugh over the whole affair together. You see, I would have nothing to do with either tragedy. I prefer comedy. Both of our arch-schemers have now taken flight from Rome; they were seized with terror at a street riot the other day, and they won't come back again, you may be sure, unless it be in the rear of a besieging army. So now we have the Cagliari palace quite to ourselves, and can sit and chat together all we please. But I must say good night; I've gossiped enough for one while, and I'm sleepy, too."

Once more the fire was extinguished and the phoenix made to yield a passage, after which Blanka found herself alone again. She shuddered at the thought of having lived for months with an open door leading to her bedroom. She debated with herself whether to stick her key in that door and leave it there permanently, while she herself sought another sleeping-room, or to yield to the charm of her unbidden guest and acquiesce in her plan of exchanging confidential visits. The strangeness and mystery of it all, and still more the hope that her neighbour might let fall an occasional word concerning Manasseh, at length prevailed over her fears and scruples, and determined her to receive the other's advances.

On the following evening she gave her servants permission to go to the theatre,--the play representing the defeat of the Austrian army by the Italians,--while she herself, after having her samovar and other tea-things brought to her room, took up her mandolin and struck a few chords on its strings. The reclining Sappho answered her, and a few minutes later there came a knock on the back of the fireplace.

"Come in!"

The phoenix rose, and the fair Cyrene appeared, this time in full toilet, as for a fashionable call, her hair dressed in the English mode, a lace shawl falling over her pink silk gown, from beneath which one got an occasional glimpse of the richly embroidered underskirt and a pair of little feet encased in high-heeled shoes.

"You were going out?" asked the princess.

"I was coming to see you."

"Did you know I was waiting for you?"

"I told you yesterday I should come, and I knew you were expecting me from your sending your servants away to the theatre."

"And you knew that too?"

"Yes, because they took mine along with them. So here we are all alone by ourselves."

The consciousness of being the only living creatures in a whole house has a delicious charm, fraught with mystery and awe, for two young women. Blanka took her guest's hat and shawl, and then proceeded to start a fire on the hearth. The fair Cyrene meanwhile caught up her mandolin and began to sing one of Alfred de Musset's songs, full of the warmth and glow of the sunny South. Presently the hostess invited her guest to take tea with her, and asked her at the same time her baptismal name.

The marchioness laughed. "Haven't you heard it often enough? They call me 'Cyrene.'"

"But that isn't your real name," objected Blanka. "You were not christened 'Cyrene.'"

"I use it for my name, however, and no one but my father confessor calls me by my real name, so that now I never hear it without thinking that I must fall on my knees and repeat a dozen paternosters in penance. Besides, my name doesn't suit me at all. It is Rozina, and I am as pale as moonshine. You might far better be called Rozina, for you have such beautiful rosy cheeks, and I should have been named Blanka. I'll tell you, suppose we exchange names: you call me Blanka, and I'll call you Rozina."

The suggestion seemed so funny to Blanka that she burst out laughing, and a woman who laughs is already more than half won over.

"Now, then," continued the other, "we can chat away to our heart's content. There's no one to listen to us or play the spy--a good thing for you to know, Rozina, because all your servants are hired spies. Your doorkeeper and his wife keep a regular journal of who comes in and who goes out, what visiting-cards are left, whom you receive, where you drive,--which they learn from your coachman,--whom you visit, and even with whom you exchange a passing word. Your maid reads all your letters and searches all your pockets. Even your gardener keeps an account of all the flowers you order; for flowers, you know, have a language of their own. Be sure you don't buy a parrot, else it will turn spy on you, too."

"Who can it be that is so suspicious of me?" asked the princess, in surprise.

"Have you forgotten the strict terms of your uncle's legacy, and are you unaware how slight an indiscretion on your part might furnish your relatives with a pretext for contesting your right to a share of the property? Do you forget, too, how trifling an error might result in the cutting off of your allowance from Prince Cagliari?"

"Well, let them watch me, if they wish," returned Blanka, composedly. "I have no secrets to hide from anybody."

"A rash assertion for a woman to make," commented the other, as she poured herself a glass of water. "How warm this water is!" she exclaimed, after taking a sip.

Blanka sprang up and offered to bring some ice from the dining-room.

"Aren't you afraid to go for it alone?"

"Certainly not; the lamps are all lighted."

While the hostess was out of the room, her guest turned over Blanka's portfolio of drawings, and among them found her outline sketch of the Colosseum.

"You sketch beautifully," commented the marchioness, upon the other's return.

"It is my only diversion," replied the princess.

"This view of the Colosseum reminds me of one I saw at the Rossis'."

"The artist may have chosen the same point of view," returned Blanka with admirable composure.

"I called on him at his studio lately," proceeded the marchioness. "I had heard one of his pictures very highly praised. It represents a young woman sitting on the gallery railing in the Colosseum, with the sunlight streaming on her through a red umbrella. The warm glow of the sunbeams is in striking contrast with the deep melancholy on the girl's face. I offered the artist two hundred scudi for the piece, but he said it was not for sale at any price."

Blanka felt as powerless in the hands of this woman as a rabbit in the clutches of a lion. The beautiful Cyrene closed the portfolio and exclaimed:

"Rozina, these men are terrible creatures! They make us women their slaves. But the woman's first and dominant thought must ever be to find some escape from her bondage."

With that she jumped up and ran out of the room, as if taken suddenly ill. Her hostess followed to see what was the matter, and found her sitting in a corner of the adjoining apartment.

"You are weeping?"

"Not at all; never merrier in my life!"

Nevertheless, two tears were shining in the fair Cyrene's eyes.

Next she ran to the piano and began to rattle off "La Gitana," which Cerito had just made so popular throughout Europe.

"Have you the score?" asked the marchioness, turning to Blanka.

"No, but I can play it from memory."

"Then play it to me, please."

Blanka complied, and the other began to dance "La Gitana" to her playing. The spirit and feeling, the coquettish grace and seductive charm, which the dancer put into the movements of her lithe form, challenge description. If only a man could have seen her then! From sheer amazement Blanka found herself unable to control her fingers, which struck more than one false note.

"Faster! Put more fire into it!" cried the dancer. But Blanka could not go on.

"Ah, you don't remember it, after all."

"I can't play when I look at you," was the reply; and the Marchioness Caldariva believed her. "You could drive a man fairly insane."

"As long as the men will torment us, we must be able to pay them back." She took Blanka's arm and returned with her to the other room. "Woe to him who invades my kingdom!" she continued. "He is bound to lose his reason. Do you wish to wager that I can't drive all Rome crazy over me? If I took a notion to dance the 'Gitana' on the opera-house stage for the benefit of the wounded soldiers, all Rome would go wild with enthusiasm, and the people would half smother me with flowers."

"I will make no such wager with you," returned Blanka, "because I know I should lose."

The beautiful Cyrene changed the subject and invited the princess to attend one of her masked balls,--"a masquerade party," she explained, "of only forty guests at the most, and those the chief personages of Roman society. I ferret out all their secrets and can see through their masks; but I use no witchery about it. My guests are admitted by ticket only, and my major-domo, who receives these cards, writes on the back of each a short description of the bearer's costume. So I have only to go to him and consult his notes to learn my guest's identity."

"But cannot your guests also procure information from the same source--for a consideration?"

"Undoubtedly. My domestics are none of them incorruptible."

Blanka laughed, and Rozina hastened to take advantage of her good humour.

"And now just imagine among these forty masks one guest who comes neither through the door, nor through the major-domo's anteroom, so that no card, no personal description, no cab-number, no information of any kind, is to be had concerning her from my servants. She is acquainted with all the secrets of those around her, but no one can guess her secret, or fathom her mystery. Meanwhile a young painter has taken his seat in one corner behind a screen of foliage, and sketches the lively scene before him. He is the only one who, with beating heart, guesses the name of the mysterious unknown. What do you say,--will this bewitching guest from fairyland deign to figure as the chief personage on my young artist's canvas?"

"Before deciding, may I see a list of those whom you have invited?"

"Certainly--a very proper request." The marchioness handed over her fan, the ribs of which were of ivory, and served the owner as tablets. They were covered with a miscellaneous list of well-known names from all classes, and the last among them was Manasseh Adorjan's. "You can order a costume of black lace, spangled with silver stars," the fair Cyrene went on; "then, with a black velvet mask, you will be ready to appear as the Queen of Night."

Blanka offered no objection to this plan.

"I will admit you upon signal, through our secret passageway, into my boudoir, and from there you will pass, when the way is clear, into the ladies' dressing-room, and thence into the ballroom. With this fan of mine in your hand, you will, after some instructions from me, be able to puzzle and mystify all whom you address, while no one will be in a position even to hazard a surmise as to your identity. When you tire of the sport, come to me, pretend to tease me, and then turn and run away. I will give chase, and under cover of this diversion you will slip out of the room, and return to your own apartments by the same way you came, while I continue the hunt and summon all present to aid me in finding my mysterious guest."

Such was the speaker's influence over Blanka, that the latter could not give her a refusal. Accordingly, when the two parted, it was with the understanding that they were soon to see each other again at the marchioness's masquerade. _

Read next: Chapter 13. A Sudden Flight

Read previous: Chapter 11. The Decision

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