Crucial Instances | Page 5

in his gilt coach. He came but
once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my grandmother said,
just a part of her poor lady's ill-luck to be wearing that day the Venetian
habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the Duke always
scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, the three
drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, except
that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his carriage;
but the Cavaliere never returned.
"Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more
alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a

deeper depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she
displayed such cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my
grandmother, for one, was half-vexed with her for giving no more
thought to the poor young man who, all this time, was eating his heart
out in the house across the valley. It is true she quitted her gold-laced
gowns and wore a veil over her head; but Nencia would have it she
looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the Duke greater
displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to the villa,
and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent pursuit,
such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young women,
yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to the
chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had
been a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For,
according to Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom
approached the Duchess, being buried in his library like a mouse in a
cheese--well, one day he made bold to appeal to her for a sum of
money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy certain tall books, a chest full
of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought him; whereupon the Duchess,
who could never abide a book, breaks out at him with a laugh and a
flash of her old spirit--'Holy Mother of God, must I have more books
about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first year of my
marriage;' and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she added: 'You
may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find the
money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise
necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and
the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from
the Bohemians--so you see I've no money to waste on trifles;' and as he
backs out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: 'You should
pray to Saint Blandina to open the Duke's pocket!' to which he returned,
very quietly, 'Your excellency's suggestion is an admirable one, and I
have already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke's
understanding.'
"Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed
wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then 'Quick!' she
cried to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands),
'Call me Antonio, the gardener's boy, to the box-garden; I've a word to

say to him about the new clove-carnations....'
"Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel
there has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone
coffin containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a
relic offered, I've been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our
own dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever
since, of particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the
Duchess had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent
devotion to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the
stone slab that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a
wooden one, that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin.
This was matter of edification to all the household and should have
been peculiarly pleasing to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he
was the kind of man who brings a sour mouth to the eating of the
sweetest apple.
"However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen
running to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio
about the new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors
and played sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind
that her grace had made a mistake in refusing that request of the
chaplain's; but