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BOOK III - THE CHOICE: CHAPTER 5
With this Odo was forced to be content; and he passed the intervening
time in devising the means of Fulvia's rescue. He was resolved to let no
rashness or negligence hinder the attempt, and to prove, by the
discretion of his course, that he was no longer the light fool who had
once hazarded her safety. He went about his preparations as one that had
no private stake in the venture; but he was therefore the more
punctilious to show himself worthy of her trust and sensible of the
charge it laid upon him.
At their next meeting he found her in the same open and friendly mood,
and she listened gratefully as he set forth his plan. This was that she
should first write to a doctor of the University in Geneva, who had been
her father's friend, stating her plight and asking if he could help her
to a living should she contrive to reach Geneva. Pending the reply, Odo
was to plan the stages of the journey in such fashion that she might
count on concealment in case of pursuit; and she was not to attempt her
escape till these details were decided. Fulvia was the more ready to
acquiesce in this postponement as she did not wish to involve Sister
Mary in her adventure, but hoped to escape unassisted during an
entertainment which was to take place in the convent on the feast of
Saint Michael, some six weeks later.
To Odo the delay was still more welcome; for it gave him what he must
needs regard as his last opportunity of being in the girl's company. She
had accepted his companionship on the journey with a readiness in which
he saw only the magnanimity of pardon; but in Geneva they must part, and
what hope had he of seeing her again? The first smart of vanity allayed,
he was glad she chose to treat him as a friend. It was in this character
that he could best prove his disinterestedness, his resolve to make
amends for the past; and in this character only--as he now felt--would
it be possible for him to part from her.
On his second visit he ventured to discharge his mind of its heaviest
burden by enquiring what had befallen her and her father after he had
lost trace of them at Vercelli. She told him quite simply that, failing
to meet him at the appointed place, they at once guessed that his plan
had been winded by the abate who travelled with him; and that after a
few hours' delay her father had succeeded in securing a chaise which had
taken them safely across the border. She went on to speak of the
hardships they had suffered after reaching Milan. Even under a
comparatively liberal government it was small advantage to be marked by
the Holy Office; and though he received much kindness, and even material
aid, from those of his way of thinking, Vivaldi was unable to obtain the
professorship he had hoped for.
From Milan they went to Pavia; but in this University, the most liberal
in Italy, the chairs were so sought after that there was no hope of his
receiving a charge worthy of his talents. Here, however, his spirit
breathed its natural air, and reluctant to lose the privileges of such
intercourse he decided to accept the post of librarian to an eccentric
nobleman of the town. If his pay was modest his duties left him leisure
for the work which was his chief concern; for his patron, who had houses
in Milan and Brescia, came seldom to Pavia, and Fulvia and her father
had the vast palace to themselves. They lodged in a corner adjoining the
library, spending their days in studious seclusion, their evenings in
conversation with some of the first scholars of Europe: the learned
botanist Scopoli, Spallanzani, Volta, and Father Fontana, the famous
mathematician. In such surroundings Vivaldi might have pursued his task
contentedly enough, but for the thought of Fulvia's future. This, his
daughter said, continually preyed on him, driving him to labours beyond
his strength; for he hoped by the publication of his book to make good,
at least in part, the loss of the small property which the Sardinian
government had confiscated. All her entreaties could not dissuade him
from over-exertion; and in addition to his regular duties he took on
himself (as she afterward learned) the tedious work of revising proofs
and copying manuscripts for the professors. This drudgery, combined with
severe intellectual effort, exceeded his flagging powers; and the book
was hardly completed when his patron, apprised of its contents, abruptly
removed him from his post. From that day Vivaldi sank in health; but he
ended as became a sage, content to have discharged the task for which he
had given up home and substance, and dying with the great Stoic's words
upon his lips:--
Lex non poena mors.
Vivaldi's friends in Milan came generously to Fulvia's aid, and she
would gladly have remained among them; but after the loss of her small
inheritance and of her father's manuscript she was without means of
repaying their kindness, and nothing remained but to turn to her own
kin.
As Odo sat in the quiet cell, listening to her story, and hearing again
the great names his youth had reverenced, he felt himself an exile
returning to his own, mounting the familiar heights and breathing the
air that was his birthright. Looking back from this recovered standpoint
he saw how far behind his early hopes had been left. Since his departure
from Naples there had been nothing to remind him of that vast noiseless
labour of the spirit going on everywhere beneath the social surface:
that baffled but undiscouraged endeavour in which he had once so
impatiently claimed his share. Now every word of Fulvia's smote the
bones of some dead purpose, till his bosom seemed a very valley of
Ezekiel. Her own trials had fanned her love of freedom, and the near
hope of release lent an exaltation to her words. Of bitterness, of
resentment she gave no sign; and he was awed by the same serenity of
spirit which had struck him in the imprisoned doctor. But perhaps the
strongest impression she produced was that of increasing his points of
contact with life. His other sentimental ties had been a barrier between
himself and the outer world; but the feeling which drew him to Fulvia
had the effect of levelling the bounds of egoism, of letting into the
circle of his nearest emotions that great tide of human longing and
effort that had always faintly sounded on the shores of self. Perhaps it
was her power of evoking this wider life that gave a sense of
permanence, of security almost, to the stolen moments of their
intercourse, lulling the lover's impatience of actual conditions with
the sense of something that must survive the accidents of fortune. Only
in some such way could he explain, in looking back, the completeness of
each moment spent with her. He was conscious even at the time of a
suspension of the emotional laws, a charmed surrender to the limitations
of his fate. When he was away his impatience reasserted itself; but her
presence was like a soothing hand on his spirit, and he knew that his
quiet hours with her would count among those intervals between the
crises of life that flower in memory when the crises themselves have
faded.
It was natural that in the course of these visits she in turn should
question him; and as his past rearranged itself beneath her scrutiny he
seemed once more to trace the thread of purpose on which its fragments
hung. He told her of his connection with the liberals of Pianura, of the
situation at court, and of the reason for his prolonged travels. As he
talked her eyes conveyed the exquisite sense of her complete
comprehension. She saw, before he could justify himself, how the
uncertainty of his future, and his inability to act, had cast him adrift
upon a life of superficial enjoyment; and how his latent dissatisfaction
with this life had inevitably resulted in self-distrust and vacillation.
"You wait your hour," she said of him; and he seized on the phrase as a
justification of his inactivity and, when chance should offer, a spur to
fresh endeavour. Her interest in the liberal cause had been intensified
and exalted by her father's death--his martyrdom, as she described it.
Like most women possessed of an abstract idea she had unconsciously
personified the idea and made a religion of it; but it was a religion of
charity and not of vindictiveness. "I should like my father's death
avenged by love and not by hate," she said; "I would have it bring
peace, not a sword."
On one point only she remained, if not hostile yet unresponsive. This
was when he spoke of de Crucis. Her manner hardened instantly, and he
perceived that, though he dwelt on the Jesuit's tolerant view and
cultivated tastes, she beheld only the priest and not the man. She had
been eager to hear of Crescenti, whom she knew by name as a student of
European repute, and to the praise of whose parochial charities she
listened with outspoken sympathy; but the Jesuits stood for the Holy
Office, and she had suffered too deeply at the hands of the Holy Office
to regard with an open mind any who might be supposed to represent its
principles. It was impossible for Odo to make her understand how
distinctly, in de Crucis's case, the man predominated over the order;
and conscious of the painfulness of the subject, he gave up the attempt
to interest her in his friend.
Three or four times he was permitted to visit her in her cell: after
that they met almost daily in the parlour, where, about the hour of
benediction, they could talk almost as privately under cover of the
general chatter. In due time Fulvia received an answer from the
Calvinist professor, who assured her of a welcome in Geneva and shelter
under his roof. Odo, meanwhile, had perfected the plan of their journey;
but as Michaelmas approached he began to fear Cantapresto's observation.
He now bitterly regretted that he had not held to his purpose of sending
the soprano back to Pianura; but to do so at this point would be to
challenge observation and he resolved instead on despatching him to
Monte Alloro with a letter to the old Duke. As the way to Geneva lay in
the opposite direction this would at least give the fugitives a three
days' lead; and they had little cause to fear pursuit from any other
quarter. The convent indeed might raise a hue and cry; but the nuns of
Santa Chiara had lately given the devout so much cause for scandal that
the abbess would probably be disposed to hush up any fresh delinquency.
The time too was well-chosen; for the sisters had prevailed on the
Reverend Mother to celebrate the saint's day by a masked ball, and the
whole convent was engrossed in the invention of whimsical disguises. The
nuns indeed were not to take part in the ball; but a number of them were
to appear in an allegorical entertainment with which the evening was to
open. The new Papal Nuncio, who was lately arrived in Venice, had
promised to be present; and as he was known to be a man of pleasure
there was scarce a sister in the convent but had an eye to his conquest.
These circumstances gave to Fulvia's plans the shelter of indifference;
for in the delightful effort of surpassing the other nuns even Mary of
the Crucifix lost interest in her friend's affairs.
Odo, to preserve the secrecy of his designs, had been obliged to keep up
a pretence of his former habits, showing himself abroad with
Coeur-Volant and Castelrovinato and frequenting the Procuratessa's routs
and card-parties. This lady, though lately returned to the Brenta, had
announced her intention of coming to Venice for the ball at Santa
Chiara; and Coeur-Volant was mightily preoccupied with the
entertainment, at which he purposed his mistress should outshine all her
companions.
The evening came at last, and Odo found himself entering the gates of
Santa Chiara with a throng of merry-makers. The convent was noted for
its splendid hospitality, and unwonted preparations had been made to
honour the saint. The brightly-illuminated bridge leading to the square
of Santa Chiara was decked with a colonnade of pasteboard and stiffened
linen cunningly painted, and a classical portico masked the entrance
gate. A flourish of trumpets and hautboys, and the firing of miniature
cannon, greeted the arrival of the guests, who were escorted to the
parlour, which was hung with tapestries and glowing with lights like a
Lady Chapel. Here they were received by the abbess, who, on the arrival
of the Nuncio, led the way to the garden, where a stage had been
erected.
The nuns who were not to take part in the play had been seated directly
under the stage, divided from the rest of the company by a low screen of
foliage. Ranged beneath the footlights, which shone on their bare
shoulders and white gowns, and on the gauze veils replacing their
monastic coifs, they seemed a choir of pagan virgins grouped in the
proscenium of an antique theatre. Everything indeed combined to produce
the impression of some classic festival: the setting of motionless
foliage, the mild autumnal sky in which the stars hung near and vivid,
and the foreground thronged with a motley company lit by the shifting
brightness of torches.
As Odo, in mask and travesty, stood observing the fantastically-dressed
audience, the pasteboard theatre adorned with statuary, and the nuns
flitting across the stage, his imagination, strung to the highest pitch
by his own impending venture, was thrilled by the contrast between the
outward appearance of the scene and its underlying reality. From where
he stood he looked directly at the abbess, who was seated with the
Nuncio and his suite under the tall crucifix in the centre of the
garden. As if to emphasise the irony of the situation, the torch fixed
behind this noble group cast an enlarged shadow of the cross over the
abbess's white gown and the splendid robes of her companions, who,
though they wore the mask, had not laid aside their clerical dress. To
Odo the juxtaposition had the effect of some supernatural warning, the
shadow of the divine wrath projected on its heedless ministers; an
impression heightened by the fact that, just opposite the cross, a
lively figure of Pan, surmounting the pediment of the theatre, seemed to
fling defiance at the Galilean intruder.
The nuns, like the rest of the company, were masked; and it had been
agreed between Odo and Fulvia that the latter should wear a wreath of
myrtle above her veil. As almost all her companions had chosen
brightly-coloured flowers this dark green chaplet was easily
distinguished among the clustered heads beneath the stage, and Odo had
no doubt of being able to rejoin Fulvia in the moment of dispersal that
should follow the conclusion of the play. He knew that the sisters were
to precede their guests and be locked behind the grate before the ball
began; but as they passed through the garden and cloisters the barrier
between nuns and visitors would probably not be too strictly maintained.
As he had foreseen, the company, attracted by the graceful procession,
pressed forward regardless of the assistant mistresses' protests, and
the shadowy arcades were full of laughter and whispered snatches of talk
as the white flock was driven back to its fold.
Odo had withdrawn to the darkest angle of the cloister, close to a door
leading to the pharmacy. It was here that Fulvia had told him to wait;
and though he had lost sight of her when the audience rose, he stood
confidently watching for the reappearance of the myrtle-wreath.
Presently he saw it close at hand; and just then the line of sisters
flowed toward him, driven forward by a group of lively masqueraders,
among whom he seemed to recognise Coeur-Volant's voice and figure.
Nothing could have been more opportune, for the pressure swept the
wearer of the myrtle-wreath almost into his arms; and as the intruders
were dispersed and the nuns laughingly reformed their lines, her hand
lingered in his and he felt himself drawn toward the door.
It yielded to her touch and Odo followed her down a dark passageway to
the empty room where rows of old Faenza jars and quaintly-shaped flagons
glimmered in the dusk. Beyond the pharmacy was another door, the key of
which hung on the wall with the portress's hood and cloak. Without a
word the girl wrapped herself in the cloak and, fitting the key to the
lock, softly opened the door. All this was done with a rapidity and
assurance for which Odo was unprepared; but, reflecting that Fulvia's
whole future hung on the promptness with which each detail of her plan
was executed, he concluded that her natural force of character enabled
her to assume an ease she could hardly feel.
The door opened on the kitchen-garden, and brushing the lavender-hedges
with her flying skirts she sped on ahead of Odo to the postern which the
nuns were accustomed to use for their nocturnal escapades. Only the
thickness of an oaken gate stood between Fulvia and the outer world. To
her the opening of the gate meant the first step toward freedom, but to
Odo the passing from their enchanted weeks of fellowship to the inner
loneliness of his former life. He hung back silent while she drew the
bolt.
A moment later they had crossed the threshold and his gondola was
slipping toward them out of the shadow of the wall. Fulvia sprang on
board and he followed her under the felze. The warm darkness enclosing
them stirred impulses which their daily intercourse had subdued, and in
the sense of her nearness he lost sight of the conditions which had
brought them together. The feeling seemed to communicate itself; for as
the gondola rounded the angle of the convent-wall and swung out on the
open, she drooped toward him with the turn of the boat and their lips
met under the loosened masks.
At the same instant the light of the Virgin's shrine in the corner of
the convent-wall fell through the window of the felze on the face lifted
to Odo's; and he found himself suddenly confronted by the tender eyes
and malicious smile of Sister Mary of the Crucifix.
"By Diana," she cried as he started back, "I did but claim my pay in
advance; nor do I think that, when she knows all, Sister Veronica will
grudge me my reward!"
He continued to stare at her in speechless bewilderment, and she went on
with a kind of tender impatience: "You simpleton, can you not guess that
you were watched, and that but for me your Veronica would at this moment
be lying under lock and key in her cell? Instead of which," she
continued, speaking more slowly, and leaning back as though to enjoy the
full savour of his suspense, "instead of which she now awaits you in a
safe nook of my choosing, where, within half an hour's time, you may
atone to her with interest for the infidelity into which I have betrayed
you."
"She knows, then?" Odo faltered, not daring to say more in his ignorance
of Sister Mary's share in the secret.
Sister Mary shook her head with a tantalising laugh. "That you are
coming? Alas, no, poor angel! She fancies that she has been sent from
the convent to avoid you--as indeed she was, and by the Reverend
Mother's own order, who, it seems, had wind of the intrigue this
morning. But, the saints be praised, the excellent sister who was
ordered to attend her is in my pay and instead of conducting her to her
relatives of San Barnado, who were to keep her locked up over night,
has, if I mistake not, taken her to a good woman of my acquaintance--an
old servant, in fact--who will guard her as jealously as the family
plate till you and I come to her release."
As she spoke she put out her head and gave a whispered order to the
gondolier; and at the word the boat swung round and headed for the city.
In the violent reaction which this strange encounter produced, Odo was
for the moment incapable of taking any clear note of his surroundings.
Uncertain if he were not once more the victim of some such mischance as
seemed to attend all his efforts to succour Fulvia, he sat in silent
apprehension as the gondola shot across the Grand Canal and entered the
labyrinth of water-ways behind San Moise. Sister Mary took his silence
philosophically.
"You dare not speak to me, for fear of betraying yourself," she said,
"and I scarce wonder at your distrust; for your plans were so well laid
that I had no notion of what was on foot, and must have remained in
ignorance if Veronica had not been put in Sister Martha's charge. But
you will both live to thank me, and I hope," she added, laughing, "to
own that you would have done better to take me into your confidence from
the first."
As she spoke the gondola touched at the head of a narrow passage which
lost itself in the blackness of the overhanging houses. Sister Mary
sprang out and drew Odo after her. A few yards down the alley she
entered a plain low-storied house somewhat withdrawn behind its
neighbours. Followed by Odo she groped her way up a dark flight of
stairs and knocked at a door on the upper landing. A vague flutter
within, indicative of whispers and uncertain movements, was followed by
the slipping of the bolt, and a middle-aged woman looked out. She drew
back with an exclamation of welcome, and Sister Mary, seizing Odo by the
shoulders, pushed him across the threshold of a small dimly-lit kitchen.
Fulvia, in her nun's habit, cowered in the darkest corner; but at sight
of Odo she sprang up, and ran toward him with a happy cry.
Content of BOOK III - THE CHOICE: CHAPTER 5 [Edith Wharton's novel: The Valley Of Decision]
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