His heart beat so hard that he lost his breath again, and while he stood there panting, the girl with the long brown legs, conscious of someone staring at her, suddenly straightened herself and turned to see who it might be.
Angelo’s voice was no louder than a whisper when he spoke her name. That was the first time. Then a little strength came to it, and he said ‘Lucrezia!’ as a man in a dark room might say it. But the third time his voice was so loud he might have been hailing a ship at sea.
‘Lucrezia!’ he cried, ‘I have come home again, and you are more beautiful than ever! I thought it was impossible for you to be more beautiful, but you have wrought a miracle and made perfection lovelier than it was, and that is why, in the first moment that I saw you, I did not recognize you. Ο Lucrezia, let us be married immediately!’
As if by the pulling of a blind on a summer morning, joy had flushed Lucrezia’s cheeks and lighted her eyes when she first saw Angelo, and she had made a swift movement as though she meant to run straight into his arms. But then she halted, still as a statue, and her eyes grew round with fear, and she lifted a hand to her mouth like a child restraining a cry of pain. Her fingers were wrinkled, her wrists pink from the washing-trough, and drops of water, running down her arm, fell hesitantly from her elbow.
Then Angelo, seeing her like that, laughed and embraced her, kissing her wet hands, and her startled eyes, and her warm neck. The women and the other girls, gathering in a close circle round them, laughed loudly and applauded. Some of them, impatient to hear of their own menfolk or eager for recognition, pulled Angelo by the sleeve and clapped him on the shoulder. But Angelo paid no attention, for by now Lucrezia’s arms were tightly round his neck. She was whispering endearments and a practical suggestion to go and look for some more private place where they could talk in peace.
‘Pazienza!’ he cried to the women, all of whom were now clamouring for news. ‘I shall be here for two or three days, and before I go I shall tell you everything I know about the regiment. But first of all I must talk with Lucrezia.’
They spent the rest of the day together, and Angelo had supper in the house of Lucrezia’s parents, a sturdy and honest pair who in twenty years of married life had produced eleven children without loss of interest in each other or diminution of affection for them. The youngest, a fair-haired boy of about twelve months, was remarkably vivacious, and Angelo was about to congratulate Signor Donati on such a testimony to his vigour when it occurred to him that the child might be the son of Lucrezia’s elder sister, who certainly had one or two of her own, and whose husband had recently been arrested on a false charge and sent to a labour battalion in Germany. Before he could make up his mind on this point, Signor Donati had refilled his glass, and the matter no longer seemed important. They drank a great deal of wine, and ate black figs and the well-cured ham of a black pig.
In the morning Angelo had another conversation with the Countess, and the day was spent in selecting safe hiding-places for the pictures. Two were stored in a winecellar among gigantic tuns whose perfume made the mere air intoxicating, and others were laid in the dry lofts of nearby farmhouses. But the Adoration of the Shepherds, which Piero della Francesca had painted, was hung in a little-used bedroom in the castle, and this was done because Angelo argued, with a great deal of feeling and considerable eloquence, that a work of such divine perfection should not, even for its own safety, be imprisoned in darkness or humiliated by confinement in a farmhouse attic.
‘Let it remain where it can give happiness and consolation to at least a few,’ he said. ‘There is more life and truth and beauty in this picture than you will find in forty living villages – and you would not bury what is alive? It is very seldom that a man has shown so greatly and so triumphantly his power to create, which he inherits from the Creator himself, and we should not conceal what proves quite clearly that some of us are certainly the children of God, and therefore all of us may be; for evidence of that kind is extremely rare. You can buy security at too high a price, and I say that a world which buried and forgot its Piero della Francescas would not be a world in which we could take any pride. I do not ask you to put it in some very public place, for that would be indiscreet, but hang it where those who know of its existence can go from time to time and breathe the air which it ennobles. We have a lot of bad company now in Italy, and therefore the greater need to associate with what is good.’
The Countess was not uninterested in painting, but her appreciation of it was more detached than Angelo’s. She could not share his emotion, but she was moved, none the less, by his argument. For she had her own enthusiasm.
She was devoted to the novels of Ouida, and in every one of the several houses belonging to the Count there was a complete set of her works. Here, in Pontefiore, was the finest of them all. Bound in a soft white leather adorned with golden blossoms, it had been Ouida’s own property – the title-pages bore her signature – and poor Ouida had sold it in the sad years before her death when she was selling nearly all her treasures to feed her dogs. Now all this commotion about pictures had set the Countess to wondering if it would not be wise to put her own favourite masterpieces in hiding, and she had been cogitating what would be a good place. But when Angelo spoke so bravely about Piero’s Adoration, she decided to be equally courageous with her Ouidas; for what he said about the painter applied, in her opinion, with equal force to the novelist.
‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll hang the picture in the small bedroom under the tower, and lock the door of the corridor that leads to it, and trust in Providence to do whatever else is necessary. Does that satisfy you?’
But Angelo made no answer. All his mind – and this had happened a hundred times before – was full of wonder at the skill with which Piero had painted the Blessed Virgin’s coif, for the pallor of her unlined forehead showed clearly through the whiteness of the lawn, and its transparent folds were as firmly shaped as the forehead itself. And what mild dignity lay in the curve of the temples, what calm assurance in the wisdom of the eyes, and though the chin, perhaps, was a little heavy, the lips were drawn with grace ineffable. – They were the very shape of Lucrezia’s, though hers were more brightly red.
Suddenly he returned to the mortal moving world about him, and with a little cry of distress exclaimed, ‘But I am late, and she is waiting for me! Oh, madam, may I leave you, for I promised to meet Lucrezia, and it is long past the time we set? Oh, please, may I go at once?’
‘Was she glad to see you?’ asked the Countess.
‘Of course! She has been waiting three years for my return, and she has been very lonely. But now I am here to comfort her, and presently we shall be married, and neither of us will ever be lonely again.’
‘Hurry up,’ said the Countess. ‘If she is still waiting for you she may be feeling lonely now, and there are limits to what a girl can bear.’
So for the second day in succession Angelo left the castle at a run. In the short avenue of cypresses that led to the main gate he encountered the strange young man with light brown hair who had roused his curiosity on the day before; but now he paid no attention to him, except from the corner of his eye, and ran past as though the stranger were invisible. This is true courtesy, he thought. The stranger, indeed, paused and made a little gesture as if he were willing to talk. But it was too late. Angelo had gone.
A pair of tall white oxen with widely sweeping horns stood on the bridge, while their driver, with Lucrezia beside him, leaned upon the parapet in contemplation of the depths below. They had their backs to Angelo, their elbows were touching, they were talking in soft voices. Roberto Carpaccio, the driver of the oxen, was a clever young man who had evaded conscription by feigning epilepsy, and taken to the hills whenever German press-gangs appeared in the neighbourhood. He was about Angelo’s age, and not ill-looking.
Angelo spoke to them sadly. ‘Here I am,’ he said. ‘I am sorry that I am late.’
‘But are you late? I hadn’t noticed it,’ said Lucrezia.
&n
bsp; ‘I am very late,’ said Angelo, and looked so extremely sad that Roberto laughed aloud, and laughing still bade Lucrezia a gay goodbye, called to his team, and went off in high good-humour.
‘What is the matter with you?’ asked Lucrezia.
‘You did not realize I was late. You were so interested in what Roberto had to say that you forgot me altogether.’
‘Am I not allowed to talk to anyone but you? Dear Angelo, how silly you are! I never have forgotten you, and never shall.’
‘You are not in love with Roberto?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘Nor with anyone but me?’
‘Nor with anyone but you!’
‘Darling Lucrezia! And you never have been in love with anyone but me?’
Lucrezia put her arms round his neck, kissed him several times with the most agreeable warmth, and said, ‘What a lot of foolish questions you ask! Tell me what you have been doing all day, and why you were so dreadfully late that I remembered, all over again, how unhappy I used to be while you were in Africa.’
‘Were you very unhappy?’
‘Oh, terribly so!’
‘All the time, and every day?’
‘You would like me to tell you so, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well yes, in a way I should.’
‘Would it really please you to know that I had been miserable for more than three years? With never a moment of pleasure in all that time?’
‘I should be very sorry for you. It would make me promise to do everything possible to give you happiness in the future, and help you to forget the past.’
‘But why do you make conditions? Promise now that you will!’
‘Lucrezia, I promise.’
‘Truly and faithfully?’
‘Truly and faithfully! Dear Lucrezia, let us be married very soon!’
But Lucrezia pushed him away, and leaning over the parapet again, looked down into the ravine. ‘No, not yet,’ she said.
‘But why not? Don Agesilas will give me leave of absence –’
‘I will not marry you while you are in the army, and while Italy is still at war.’
‘But we are no longer at war with the English. They are coming to liberate us, not to fight against us.’
‘You said last night that some of our soldiers are fighting against the Tedeschi, and the English certainly are fighting, and the Americans also, and they are all fighting here in Italy.’
‘But I shall not fight again, if I can help it. And I am so bad a soldier that Don Agesilas, I think, will let me leave the army, and then I shall come home and stay here.’
‘Then someone else will take you away. No, Angelo, I will not marry you until the war is truly finished, for I do not want to be a wife for two or three weeks, or only for two or three days, perhaps, and then be left alone. It is not good for a girl who is newly married to be left alone.’
‘You mean,’ said Angelo, ‘that it would be like starting to read a new book –’
‘Or sitting down to dinner –’
‘Then someone borrows the book –’
‘The plate is snatched away –’
‘You want to know what happens in the next chapter –’
‘You are hungrier than you were before you began –’
‘But if you have strength of mind,’ said Angelo –
‘You can carry a great burden,’ said Lucrezia. ‘But there are limits.’
‘On every road in Italy you see women carrying enormous burdens.’
‘And their backs are bent, their faces tired, and they are old before their time. So also if you put too grievous a load upon their minds – no, Angelo. I will not do it.’
Nothing he said would change her opinion or undo her decision, and Angelo, in spite of his disappointment, became aware of a new respect for her. He even felt a little draught of fear that was somehow quite delicious. Sooner or later he would marry Lucrezia, and then he would be at the mercy of this strength she had developed in the years of absence, he would surrender himself to an unknown power. Though the prospect was alarming it was also alluring, and with some curiosity he perceived that fear is not always a deterrent to action. It may be, he thought, that I am a poltroon in war not merely because I am afraid of being hurt, but also because I do not enjoy fighting, neither the act of it nor the idea. For I now perceive that I am a little bit afraid of Lucrezia, yet I have no intention of running away from her. I should say not! So I am not altogether a coward, it seems.
Comforted by this reflection he accepted her refusal, and walked home with her in the darkness in a cheerful mood. It was Lucrezia, some little while later, who was reluctant to part, but now Angelo was quite firm, and with no regard for what lay upon her mind, bade her goodnight.
He spent the following day talking to everyone in the village, the evening was passed in tender conversation with Lucrezia, and early the next morning he set off for Rome. The lorries were now laden with wine in great vessels of green glass jacketed in straw; and they arrived without misadventure.
Pleased and self-important about the safe conclusion of his mission, Angelo demanded to see the Count.
‘He is not here,’ replied a middle-aged butler. ‘Very soon after you left us, two German officers arrived, and a little while later he went away with them in a motor-car. I have not heard of him since.’
‘Dio mio! He has not been arrested?’
‘It happened several days ago. I do not think that anyone would stay so long with the Tedeschi of his own accord,’ said the butler.
CHAPTER FOUR
LORENZO THE BUTLER, a timid man who went in great dread of the Germans, had done nothing to ascertain the Count’s fate or his whereabouts, and for safety’s sake had even concealed what he knew from the several people who had inquired for his master.
‘If anyone has heard of him it will be the Marchesa Dolce,’ said Angelo.
‘She knows nothing,’ answered Lorenzo. ‘She has telephoned every day to ask for him.’
‘And what did you tell her?’
‘What could I tell her? The Tedeschi listen to all our conversations, and if you so much as mention them your name is noted as that of a person interested in politics; and that is the end of you.’
‘I had better go and see the Marchesa,’ said Angelo thoughtfully. ‘She is a person of great accomplishment, she will know what to do about this.’
He went immediately to the house that overlooked the Piazza di Spagna, and after only a short delay was admitted to the Marchesa’s presence. She was a very beautiful woman with a long nose and long slender hands. Her habitual expression was sedate and serious, a permanent reproof, as it were, to those who were first attracted by the voluptuous quality of her admirable figure.
‘I remember you quite well,’ she exclaimed. ‘Where is Don Agesilas?’
‘That is what I hope to find out,’ said Angelo, and repeated the alarming tale he had heard from the butler.
‘What a fool that man is! I telephone every day, and he replies that his master has gone out. Nothing more than that. If I had known a little earlier …’
She was silent for a while, and then, with sadness in her voice, said, ‘It is going to be difficult. I do not think I can secure his release without help of some kind. I need advice, I must borrow a little wisdom. What have you learnt, Angelo, while you have been away all these years?’
‘That before the war I was better off than I realized: there is one thing. That soldiers can suffer much and still survive, but are not always improved by their suffering: there is another. That if men are as cruel at home as they are abroad, then their wives have much to complain of –’
‘Your time has not been wholly wasted,’ said the Marchesa.
‘And finally,’ said Angelo, ‘that if living at peace were as simple as going to war, we might have more of it.’
‘That is probably true,’ said the Marchesa, ‘but the discovery, if it is one, is not helpful. Listen to me, Angelo. The Count, your master
, has certainly been arrested by the Germans, and is therefore in grave danger. Until recently the senior German general in Rome was von Kluggenschaft, a person of unpleasant character but normal temperament, over whom I had some influence. He, unfortunately, has now been replaced by a man called Hammerfurter, who is different. That is to say, his nature is different. With him I can do nothing. He is greedy and could be bribed, of course, but I am not a wealthy woman.’
‘I have just brought two lorry-loads of wine from Pontefiore,’ said Angelo. ‘Don Agesilas was going to sell it to General von Kluggenschaft, but it might serve for a bribe instead.’
‘Not for a general,’ said the Marchesa. ‘Generals put a high price on their integrity. – But is it good wine?’
‘No, not very good, but there is a large quantity of it.’
‘There is an unpleasant little man called Colonel Schwigge who might be influenced,’ said the Marchesa. ‘One could offer such a bribe to a colonel without much fear of giving offence, I think. He could not, I am afraid, secure the release of Don Agesilas, but he might tell us where he is.’
‘What, then, shall I do with the wine?’
‘Have it unloaded and I shall let you know.’
The Marchesa had no difficulty at all with Colonel Schwigge, who, as it happened, was being blackmailed by a brother officer and stood in urgent need of money. He knew where he could sell the wine for a good price, and in return for it he quickly discovered that the Count was a prisoner of the Schutzstaffel. He gave the Marchesa his address, and informed her that the person in immediate charge of the prisoners there was a Corporal Hisser.
‘I have two other favours to ask you,’ said the Marchesa. ‘Here is a gold watch belonging to Don Agesilas: perhaps it might be sent to him. And I should very much like to meet this Corporal Hisser.’
The watch was a valuable one, and Colonel Schwigge, quickly appraising it, was grateful for the tactful way in which it had been offered to him; for the Marchesa quite understood that he would keep it. He readily undertook to arrange the meeting she desired, and telephoned that evening to say that the Corporal would be waiting, at noon the next day, in the gardener’s lodge of the Schutzstaffel villa.
Private Angelo Page 4
