Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta

Preface

If, in these records of a life which was held in the chains of rankling secrecy, there is too much of shadow' and too little of the smiling day, remember that the clouded life was dear to her who writes these pages; and if the pen lingers too fondly, too ardently, as oft it may, on her whose sorrows were sublime, because sublimely hidden from the eyes of love, remember with pity the Southern heart which drank deeply of icy woes, and had to learn the hard lesson of patience.

The Author.

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BEAUTIFUL RIENZI.

Chapter I. What I Find In My New Existence

" At first it seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist; It moved, and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. "—Coleridge.

Since my earliest childhood, I, Ivanilla Rienzi, had livgg with my grandmother, in Italy, who had claimed me bocause I bore her name. I was the second daughter of her younger son, and would inherit her property. My father early in life had left his native land, gone to America, and literally carved for himself a fortune as master sculptor and architect in New York. Here he had married a sweet, gentle wife, and made his home; here his two daughters had been born, and from here, fourteen years ago, I, the youngest, then a tiny imp of four years, little red eyes and blurred, had been trotted down to a great puffing steamer, by the side of a stately grandmamma, who called me " Poverina mia," (my poor little one) and bade me kiss mamma good-by, for I was going away to a pretty home among grapes and oleanders. But I did not care for these visionary glories, but began to cry when I saw a pale, sad face which was the dearest on earth to me, and fastened my little fists like crabs in her beautiful hair, for then I was passionately pressed to her soft bosom, then borne, plunging wildly, to a certain cot, where I fell fast asleep, and so missed a last sight of the motherling.

Years of childhood were spent under the sunny skies of Italy. I had grown to love my grandparent with all the force of my heart. My studies were all under private tuition; my world lay in my grandparent and our lovely home by the Venetian waters. All fervor, romance, spontaneous passion, I awaited the hand which should open the page of life to me.

It came — the hand of death.

My beloved grandmamma slowly, calmly faded, and at the same time my mother, whom I could scarce remember, was sent from her bleak American home to revive in the milder Venice. She it was who stayed me in my great affliction, closed the aged one's eyes, and presided by the dying bed with gentle cheer. She it was who first directed my sick heart to the home across the sea, and to the unknown sister who waited to welcome me.

And so my good uncle, Signor Andrea Eienzi, who was a bachelor and a great man in Venice, took care of me, and brought me away from loved Italia and my invalid mother to Liverpool, where be put me on board a steamer, and under the care of a learned doctor of something, who was a philosopher and afraid of women, and so shipped me !fcrr my new home.

Behold me then at the wharf in New York, sitting very

impatiently in the ladies' saloon of the steamship A

waiting for some one to come and claim me.

Other ladies had put on their prettiest dresses, and donned their sweetest smiles, and had gone away with husbands, fathers, brothers, and guardians, only giving a hasty hand-shake to friends who had been made in the two weeks at sea, and who would be forgotten in two weeks more.

And as I frowned at I vanilla in the mirror, a figure stood in the door-way of the saloon looking at me; and as the door swayed to and fro she held it open with one arched hand, while a smile half of doubt and wistfulness dawned on her lips.

And her face was beautiful as a dream, her eyes blue as the rippling waters of the Brenta far away in my sunny Venezia, her figure tall and regal like a Cleopatra's, and

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. M

her charms in their affluence were scarce of this bat-like world, where dusky wrong clouds all things.

" Is this — yes, it must be Iva!" said the lady, tremulously.

"Heavens!"' cried I, "are you my sister, Isolina?"

Her arms were ro nd me by this time; she was embracing me; my head drop ed on her bosom — she was mine. All this loveliness, this ^race was mine; this yielding bosom was swelling for m< the tie of blood bound us together — my sister!"

I clung to the exquisite vision and wept with joy as I inwardly resolved to deserve the love of so peerless a being; and while I was looking up at my sister's perfect face, the father came in, grand as a Roman emperor — dark, kingly, soulful — and. folded his swarthy, sun-ripened child in his arms, as the sweeter vision had done before; and we all laughed and wept together, though we were but strangers.

"We gayly recovered Professor Eustacio from a trance of philosophy at the open hatchway of the luggage-hold, and took him home with us in a rattling carriage which passed through scenes strange to eyes accustomed to the creeping waters and. gondolas of the water-city; and my happy father led me by the hand up through a square garden into the tall mansion, where the dark polished door was thrown open and I was ushered into a hall of lofty magnificence, where a low-toned waiter bowed and welcomed Miss Ivaniila "home."

And who so radiant and sprightly as this new companion of mine, when she had taken me up into her own pretty dressing-room, and ensconced me in a deep downy tippingchair, which swayed me gently back and forth with a dream-like motion. How she laughed and fondled me when I made known at last the thoughts that were in my burning soul.

" Isolina," I murmured, timidly ; " you are the loveliest being I ever saw. You are so much fresher and fairer than grandmother Eienzi, though she was fair in my eyes — and even Signor Frinli, who was forty-eight, and very handsome, and a divine music-master, seems gross beside you. You must be the Queen of Beauty in this city, and have many to adore you. Will you care for my love too ? I am eighteen, you know, and not a child, and I think my heart never was so moved as it has been by you. Will you let me love you, my sister ?"

" Oh, you darling — yes!"

She was unlocking little golden trinkets to show me, but she came without them and knelt before me, with her bright eyes raised.

" vVe must be thorough sisters," she said, softly. " We must love and trust each other as we love and trust no one else ; we must let nothing come between our hearts."

" Beautiful one," I murmured, " each thought of my soul shall be yours — each wish of your heart, my prayer — and you to me the same. Is it not so ?"

And suddenly, with a richly carmine cheek, she clasped me close, and her heart thrilled with a nameless emotion, whose intensity was all unknown by me.

On the 6tk of October, 1862, I arrived at my new home, and commenced life in New York.

I soon was introduced to my sister's gay friends, and I found she was the belle of her circle ; none so regal, none so lovely as she. At ball and concert, reunion or drive, she reigned supreme, by right of her intellectual powers and matchless loveliness.

They called her " The Beautiful Eienzi,^ and my head was almost turned with triumph. I worshiped her with the fanatical enthusiasm of a devotee, and more deeply as the days went on, and often my father laughed and said that Isolina was my first love. She may have been. With secret exultation I watched the uniform firmness with which she checked the devotion of her many admirers, the serene simplicity with which she passed through adulations, as if unconscious of them, and brought her deepest tenderness to me.

The shimmering dusk was mine to creep close to my sister and drink in her soft perfections, like fondest lover, and in these sweet thought hours I learned to ponder something.

Though her eyes were clear and open as an infant's, to my vivid glances, though her lips responded with the ready laughter or the gentle sigh to my varving moods, still sometimes I felt as if, her heart were hidden from me, as if her thoughts were not always explained tv me, or her moods translatable.

Why those flushes, sweet and strange, sweeping over her tender face when silence fell between ue ? Why those wistful sighs, which lighted that bosom soft as cygnet-down, even m the midst of my merriest fantasies of talk ? My hands might clasp hers longingly — my eyes appeal, but those smiling lips spoke not but by caresses ; the fire glanced out and rouged the tender cheek and brought the amber hair into flame-like halos, and she looked like some gorgeous fire-spirit, and like the spirit, her sc -1 was beyond my reach.

Yet I was loving her more and more; my heart of passion was surging to its depths. I shall love that bright vision with its fair face of supreme beauty and its halo of fire-bronzed hair, forever! These days with my beautiful sister were the happiest of my life.

*******

On the last day of October we sat together at the window of the drawing-room, looking down into the busy street.

Her arm was around me, and I was leaning against her chair.

As gayly I spoke to her, the hand I toyed with closed vehemently; she bent forward, and her face was hidden from me, but her dainty ear flamed up a sudden scarlet.

"Ah, ha!" I cried, with sportive triumph, "who thus moves my beautiful lady's heart? Is the "conqueror coming?"

She turned as I jested. I had thought her animated by joy, but this seemed no joy. Her blue eyes were dark and stern, her brow inflexible; the flush was not of pleasure, but of anger.

"My sweet one!" I exclaimed, "what has grieved you? Tell me, my sister."

She did not answer. She drew me forward and kissed my brow. It was a hasty, eager kiss; then she advanced to the door as if to fly, and shrank back when her hand was on the lock. The door opened; a name was announced by the servant, which I failed to catch, and a gentleman entered.

Dazzled by the glory of the clouds I had been watching, I could not discern at first the visitor's face. I saw him seize her hand and bend to kiss it. I saw her draw it from him, and tower before him a moment in inflexible silence; then she turned to me, and the golden sunlight fell on her face, which was troubled and distressed.

"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the gentleman, in a la BEAUTIFUL BIENZI.

low, musical voice. " I was not aware of the presence of another lady/'

" My sister Ivanilla — Mr. Cecil Beaumont," said Isolina.

On the instant a small strong hand was clasping mine, a pair of fiery, red-brown eyes leaped into mine. I raised my eyes to a face which was pale, and fierce, and resolute, despite its boyish youthfulness. And as I read what was expressed in the restless face, I saw behind its mystic beauty a great sorrow in the past, or in the future, which threw a chill weight upon my soul.

" Is this the foreign sister? They say she is a goddess of romance; all heart, nerve, sympathies. What then will your sympathy do for me? Behold me, a poor wretch, who lives on his wits — ay, an author — and an exile, in a land of enmity, condemned to win bread from hands which helped to dig his father's grave. Behold me, a victim to the Queen of Beauty, kneeling to a heart of ice. Come now, do you pity me?"

"Mr. Beaumont!" broke in my sister's voice, so coldly and with such scorn that I scarce could believe I heard my mild-hearted Isolina.

He turned to her and took a quick step toward her with such hunger, wild and yearning, in his eyes that one could on the spot discern the reason of his being there.

" Shall I go away?" I whispered to my sister.

She bowed her head, though I hoped she would detain me.

It was he, the visitor, who caught my hand as I passed, aad pressed it to his lips..

" Plead for me!" he whispered, once more transfixing me with those fiery, red-brown eyes.

I shivered and retreated, my heart throbbing with dismay. The deepening sunset smote my sister's face, and filled the room with glory. I turned softly to the door, glided out and stood in the hall alone.

Darkness filled that face and room when next I looked upon them; the shadow had slid within the portal, and our days of girlish happiness were over.

Chapter II. I Chase A Phantom, And Fail To Find It

" It speaks of storm and tempest; Wild horror and despair; And its numbers chill the life-blood, For the dirge of Death is there!" — Anon.

I got my hat and paced up and down the gravel walk before the house. The evening was chilly, and the beds of purple petunias and black pansies were bathed in a white hoarfrost, the forerunner of that winter I could not remember.

I drew my scarf yet tighter round my shoulders, though I felt no cold; my blood was burning, my cheeks fevered with the strange prophetic dread which had come upon me; dismay was at my heart.

An hour passed by — to me a long and anxious one; the sun sank like a rocket, in an inflamed haze, behind the houses; I looked up fixedly now at the drawing-room windows where broad gleams of firelight spurted out between the curtains; I went to the stone parapet by the garden gate and looked longingly down the street for my father; I was lonely, thus shut out from my sister by a stranger. I was terrified, and crept back to the door.

At the foot of the steps I met Mr. Cecil Beaumont.

"Ah! the dark eyed lady!" he said, laying his hand lightly on mine. <f Do you know that I have never heard your voice yet? Come — you are going to befriend me?"

" Signor, what can I do for you ? I would willingly make you less wretched if I had the power."

"Why do you think I'm wretched, my little one?"

" Your eyes — alas! there is a tragedy of woe in them; I shudder with grief as I behold them."

"It has not come yet/' he answered, with a hollow laugh; "but it is coming. She, 'The Beautiful Rienzi/ will share it — do you hear? — if this little hand of yours does not try to ward it back!"

His wild, desperate face became pale; I recoiled and looked at him in terror.

14 BEAUTJFUL RIENZI.

" What can i" do, Mr. Beaumont?" I exclaimed.

" You can be my advocate; she loves you, and will listen. You can see that no interloper comes between us — and when they do, apprise me."

"Be a spy, sir?"

"Pshaw! a spy on your own sister, Miss Ivanilla? That is impossible — the sisters hide nothing from each other."

" Or from their lovers? Instruct me; I have not learned your American usages."

" You refuse, then, to plead for the hapless refugee? You laugh at the agony of a heart sensitive as your own, and writhing beneath sorrows of which scorned love is the crowning one. You turn from your countryman and refuse to help him?"

"My countryman? I never turn from an Italian, sir."

"My mother is an Italian, and I inherit all her fire — with but little of the bravery of my Virginian sire. I can bear poverty, exile, and toil, my friend, but I cannot bear to lose the heart I love so wildly."

"Perhaps she loves another, sir."

He flung away my hand; his face petrified with jealousy. He put his hand to his heart, as if I had stunned him, and eyed me desperately.

" I have no proof for such a supposition," I said, my heart aching for In m; "I do not think my sister's affection is engaged to any one; but how else could one construe her coldness to you? Courage, my friend; I will sound the waters of my Isolina's soul, and if an image is painted there, you must be content to ride away, asking no questions, as a true knight should. If not, Iva shall paint thee there in brightest colors; I will be your friend, Mr. Beaumont."

He caught my hand and kissed it ardently. A wondrous change was in his face; its hard, desperate look was gone, and it spoke but of sweet tenderness; those melting eyes fixed upon me a wistful gratitude, too pure, too sincere for treachery.

" I will dare to cherish hope, then, with so resistless a pleader as you, lady," he murmured, gently. " Oh! be my friend, or I shall not answer for myself!"

Quickly he vanished down into the street, and I fled in the gathering gloom back to the house.

The ruby firelight alone filled the drawing-room with a somber light, funeueal and uncertain; my sister's figure, tall and slender, was sharply defined by the flickering jets as she stood on the hearth with her back to me. There was something in her attitude which struck me with an undefined feeling of disaster. My heart began to flutter — I ran in. and stood side by side with her, looking up into her face.

That face, in which I gazed, was pale and perplexed; wonder, or terror, or remorse, had contracted the arching brows until they met in two depressed curves; her dark eyes, questioning, affrighted, fixed themselves upon the crumbling embers, as if to read a dreaded destiny; her bosom heaved with coming tears, as yet restrained.

"What grieves you so?" I whispered ardently. "My darling, tell your sister everything.'"

She turned and clasped me to her heart with a long, shuddering sigh.

" What shall I tell you, Ivanilla?" she murmured.

" Your whole heart — everything. Why has the coming of Cecil Beaumont affrighted you? Who has stolen the love away that the poor young Southerner covets?"

She listened to me in dread silence — she scarcely breathed — her pulse seemed suspended. Again that shuddering sigh rent her bosom; but she did not speak. I threw back my head and looked at her, and she turned her face away.

"Alas! you hide your heart from Ivanilla!" I moaned. "You have thoughts which you never told to me! Tell me — tell me, my beautiful — you have a lover?"

"No!" she cried, in a tone which startled me. Her sadness had vanished — her face vibrated into an incontrollable smile, sudden and strange; she met my gaze, flushed, and vailed my eyes with her velvet palrn a moment. When she released me, she was calm again; that rapture, or agitation, had passed away, and I was shut out after all.

"Who is Cecil Beaumont?" I asked, after a long pause.

" He is a gentleman from Virginia — a clever author, they say. You appeared much delighted with that book, " Veronico" — that was his."

" He has a grand genius, then. Pity you could not love such a soul! And he does adore you!''

" I am very, very sorry to be forced to believe that!" said my sister, gravely.

"But why? His character is not "

"His character is blameless, Iva, so far as human eye can judge. He is a most exemplary person, and a pattern of filial affection, they say. He supports his mother by his writings. Oh, me!"

This last exclamation seemed wrung from her in sudden distress; she sighed heavily and wearily.

"How long have you known the Southerner?" I asked.

"I made his acquaintance last summer — at Saratoga," she answered, in a sinking voice. "He had just been liberated from prison. He was captured with a company of Confederates some three months before and brought up North. He was the son of a wealthy Virginia planter, who put himself at the head of a regiment when the war commenced, and fell in one of the first battles. The plantation was burned, and the estate destroyed; Mrs. Beaumont forced to fly and hide with her slaves in the swamps, with Cecil as a protector. A small remnant of Colonel Beaumont's company gathered round his son, and Cecil became- a noted guerrilla and a scourge to our men, whenever opportunity occurred. At length swamp-fever carried off a third of them, and the rest were captured in the Chickahominy Swamp, the skeletons of themselves. Most of them were exchanged; but there was no one to take interest in young Beaumont or his mother; they were sent North and at last liberated. Young Cecil came to Saratoga, an invalid, and there he met me, and without any design on my part — not the slightest, Iva — became too much attached to me. It is very false of him — he is treating very cruelly an amiable young lady who was very kind to him when he was sick and in prison. Her father was governor of the prison, and mainly by her influence the young soldier was liberated. He sought her hand, and was accepted— poor child! her disinterested love scarcely merits such returns."

" What! is he so false as that?" I exclaimed; "but who could help loving you, Isolina? You are so beautiful and grand!"

She smiled rather sadlv, and resumed:

"Miss Meredith spent last winter at New York, and a sweeter creature 1 think I never met. She became a warm friend of mine; and you can understand how painful it is for me to be the cause of wrong to her. I have sent the inconstant young man back to her once already, and I fondly hoped that his sudden passion would pass away, and she would never be pained by knowing of it.

"And this is all the reason of your distress? You love no one else?" I exclaimed, with eager interest.

Again that flash of mysterious agitation crossed her face.

" Who put such a thought in your brain?" she returned, sadly. "I have no other love — you must believe me, Ivanilla."

I did believe her; a new thought occurred to me.

Perhaps she loved the poor young refugee in her secret heart, but sternly crushed the feeling for the sake of her friend. And if so, what a heart my beautiful sister had! Ah, what a grand soul!

I admired her more than ever — I contemplated her inflexible sense of honor — I glowed with enthusiasm.

But meantime she had told me nothing.

There was a masked ball that night, and our father would have us go — in character, too, as he was never tired of showing the contrast between his two daughters.

There moved " The Beautiful Kienzi," pale, serene as a star, in the velvet and diamonds, the lace ruffles and pointed diadem of Mary, the lovely Queen of Scots. Here skimmed the little swarthy Italian peasant, in her short petticoat, velvet bodice, and basket of grapes on her arm; a very Momus of laughter, as an Edinburgh fishwife, with a crab at her back, jostled her and shouted, " Caller -ou!'' There were Turks and Dervishes, Chinese, Monks, Quakers, Indians, Sultans, Stars, Nights, Mornings, Peacocks. Birds of Paradise, Ravens, even Mount Vesuvius — which was represented by a lady in a pointed dress with flame-colored feathers in her head.

Minerva took me under her charge — a friend of my sister, and a great favorite of mine, because of her wit and sprightliness — one Miss Belle Cranstown, who shall hereafter be more fully set forth in this story; and under her wing I had a most exhaustive time, laughing at her sallies and being introduced to some fierce-looking Moors who were scouring the room for their Desdemonas.

Once the beauteous Mary Stuart passed me with a loving smile* and my merry friend Belle burst into a laugh at the Scottish queen's companion, a resolute- looking lady, with a furious ruff and long, stiff bodice.

"Brave Queen Bess!" she jibed, "twist the cousin round your finger. That's gister Jjgu, my dear, and I overheard a

Trappist telliirg the Pope in the corner there that the lady suited the character very well. Bather hard on either Lou or Queen Elizabeth — I sha'u't say which."

I was still looking with proud eyes at my lovely sister, whose calm perfections in her stately costume were absolutely dazzling, when suddenly she swung round from her ladycompanion and gazed with a slowly deepening flush of wild emotion at a holly-wreathed pillar, beside which a figure was standing with folded arms. A mask shielded the face, and the nodding plume of Napoleon's hat cast a shadow across the mask, but the figure, clad a la the victorious conqueror, was tall and princely in its proportions, and there was a certain forlorn grandeur in the attitude that suggested aptly enough my lively friend's next remarks: