Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  “Florian,” she murmured half aloud!— “MY Florian!” And she recalled certain lines of verse he had written to her, — for most Italians write verse as easily as they eat maccaroni; — and there are countless rhymes to “amor” in the dulcet Dante-tongue, whereas our rough English can only supply for the word “love” some three or four similar sounds, — which is perhaps a fortunate thing. Angela spoke English and French as easily and fluently as her native Tuscan, and had read the most notable books in all three languages, so she was well aware that of all kinds of human speech in the world there is none so adapted for making love and generally telling lies in, as the “lingua Toscana in bocca Romana.” And this particular “lingua” Florian possessed in fullest perfection of sweetness, so far as making love was concerned; — of the telling of lies he was, according to Angela’s estimate of him, most nobly ignorant. She had not many idle moments, however, for meditation on her love matters, or for dreamy study of the delicate beginnings of the autumnal tints on the trees of the Bois, for the carriage she had been awaiting soon made its appearance, and bowling rapidly down the road drew up sharply at the door. She had just time to perceive that her uncle had not arrived alone, when he entered, — and with a pretty grace and reverence for his holy calling, she dropped on one knee before him to receive his benediction, which he gave by laying a hand on her soft hair and signing the cross on her brow. After which he raised her and looked at her fondly.

  “My dear child!” — he said, tenderly, — and again “My dear child!”

  Then he turned towards Manuel, who had followed him and was now standing quietly on the threshold of the apartment.

  “Angela, this is one of our Lord’s ‘little ones,’” he said,— “He is alone in the world, and I have made myself his guardian and protector for the present. You will be kind to him — yes — as kind as if you were his sister, will you not? — for we are all one family in the sight of Heaven, and sorrow and loneliness and want can but strengthen the love which should knit us all together.”

  Raising her candid eyes, and fixing them on Manuel, Angela smiled. The thoughtful face and pathetic expression of the boy greatly attracted her, and in her heart she secretly wondered where her uncle had found so intelligent and inspired-looking a creature. But one of her UNfeminine attributes was a certain lack of curiosity concerning other people’s affairs, and an almost fastidious dislike of asking questions on matters which did not closely concern her. So she contented herself with giving him that smile of hers which in itself expressed all sweetness, and saying gently, —

  “You are very welcome! You must try to feel that wherever my uncle is, — that is ‘home’.”

  “I have felt that from the first,” — replied Manuel in his soft musical voice, “I was all alone when my lord the Cardinal found me, — but with him the world seems full of friends.”

  Angela looked at him still more attentively; and the fascination of his presence became intensified. She would have liked to continue the conversation, but her uncle was fatigued by his journey, and expressed the desire for an hour’s rest. She therefore summoned a servant to show him to the rooms prepared for his reception, whither he went, Manuel attending him, — and when, after a little while, Angela followed to see that all was arranged suitably for his comfort, she found that he had retired to his bed-chamber, and that just outside his door in a little ante-room adjoining, his “waif and stray” was seated, reading. There was something indescribable about the boy even in this reposeful attitude of study, — and Angela observed him for a minute or two, herself unseen. His face reminded her of one of Fra Angelico’s seraphs, — the same broad brow, deep eyes and sensitive lips, which seemed to suggest the utterance of wondrous speech or melodious song, — the same golden hair swept back in rich clusters, — the same eager, inspired, yet controlled expression. A curious fluttering of her heart disturbed the girl as she looked — an indefinable dread — a kind of wonder, that almost touched on superstitious awe. Manuel himself, apparently unconscious of her observation, went on reading, — his whole attitude expressing that he was guarding the door to deter anyone from breaking in upon the Cardinal’s rest, and Angela at last turned away reluctantly, questioning herself as to the cause of the strange uneasiness which thrilled her mind.

  “It is foolish, of course,” — she murmured, “but I feel just as if there were a supernatural presence in the house, . . . however, — I always do have that impression with Uncle Felix, for he is so good and noble-minded, — almost a saint, as everyone says — but to-day there is something else — something quite unusual—”

  She re-entered the drawing-room, moving slowly with an abstracted air, and did not at once perceive a visitor in the room, — a portly person in clerical dress, with a somewhat large head and strongly marked features, — a notable character of the time in Paris, known as the Abbe Vergniaud. He had seated himself in a low fauteuil, and was turning over the pages of the month’s “Revue de Deux Mondes”, humming a little tune under his breath as he did so, — but he rose when he saw Angela, and advanced smilingly to greet her as she stopped short, with a little startled exclamation of surprise at the sight of him.

  “Forgive me” he said, with an expressively apologetic gesture,— “Have I come at an inopportune moment? I saw your uncle arrive, and I was extremely anxious to see him on a little confidential matter — I ventured to persuade your servant to let me enter—”

  “No apologies are necessary, Monsieur l’Abbe” said Angela, quickly, “My uncle Felix is indeed here, but he is tired with his journey and is resting—”

  “Yes, I understand!” And Monsieur l’Abbe, showing no intention to take his leave on account of the Cardinal’s non-presence, bowed low over the extended hand of “the Sovrani” as she was sometimes called in the world of art, where her name was a bone for envious dogs-in-the-manger to fight over— “But if I might wait a little while—”

  “Your business with my uncle is important?” questioned Angela with slightly knitted brows.

  “My dear child, all business is important,” — declared the Abbe, with a smile which spread the light of a certain satirical benevolence all over his plump clean-shaven face, “or so we think — we who consider that we have any business, — which is of course a foolish idea, — but one that is universal to human nature. We all imagine we are busy — which is so curious of us! Will you sit here? — Permit me!” And he dexterously arranged a couple of cushions in an arm-chair and placed it near the window. Angela half-reluctantly seated herself, watching the Abbe under the shadow of her long lashes as he sat down opposite to her. “Yes, — the emmets, the flies, the worms and the men, are all of one equality in the absurd belief that they can do things — things that will last. Their persistent self-credulity is astonishing, — considering the advance the world has made in science, and the overwhelming proofs we are always getting of the fact that we are only One of an eternal procession of many mighty civilizations, all of which have been swept away with everything they have ever learnt, into silence, — so that really all we do, or try to do, amounts to doing nothing in the end!”

  “That is your creed, I know,” said Angela Sovrani with a faint sigh, “But it is a depressing and a wretched one.”

  “I do not find it so,” responded the Abbe, complacently looking at a fine diamond ring that glittered on the little finger of his plump white hand, “It is a creed which impresses upon us the virtue of being happy during the present moment, no matter what the next may bring. Let each man enjoy himself according to his temperament and capabilities. Do not impose bounds upon him — give him his liberty. Let him alone. Do not try to bamboozle him with the idea that there is a God looking after him. So will he be spared much disappointment and useless blasphemy. If he makes his own affairs unpleasant in this world’, he will not be able to lift up his hands to the innocent skies, which are only composed of pure ether, and blame an impossible Large Person sitting up there who can have no part in circumstances which ar
e entirely unknown outside the earth’s ridiculously small orbit.”

  He smiled kindly as he spoke, and looked paternally at “the Sovrani,” who flushed with a sudden warmth that sent a wave of pale rose over her face, and made her cheeks the colour of the flower she wore.

  “How cruel you are!” she said,— “How cold — how didactic! You would give each man his freedom according to habit and temperament, — no matter whether such habit and temperament led to crime or otherwise, — you would impose upon him no creed, — no belief in anything higher than himself, — and yet — you remain in the Church!”

  The Abbe laughed softly.

  “Chere Sovrani! You are angry — deliciously angry! Impulsively, enthusiastically, beautifully vexed with me! I like to see you so, — you are a woman of remarkable genius, and yet you are quite a little child in heart, — a positive child, with beliefs and hopes! I should not wonder if you even believed that love itself is eternal! — that most passing of phantoms! — yes — and you exclaim against me because I venture to think for myself? It is appalling that I should think for myself and yet remain in the Church? My dear lady, you might just as well, after unravelling the dirty entanglement of the Dreyfus case, have turned upon our late friend Faure and exclaimed ‘And yet you remained President!’”

  Angela’s violet eyes glowed.

  “He was not allowed to remain President,” she said.

  “No, he was not. He died. Certainly! And I know you think he would not have died if he had done his best to clear the character of an innocent man. To women of your type, it always seems as if God — the Large Person up above — stepped in exactly at the right moment. It would really appear as if it were so at times. But such things are mere coincidences.”

  “I do not believe in coincidences,” said Angela decisively, “I do not believe in ‘chance’ or ‘luck’, or what you call ‘fortuitous’ haphazard arrangements of any sort. I think everything is planned by law from the beginning; even to the particular direction in which a grain of dust floats through space. It is all mathematical and exact. And the moving Spirit — the Divine Centre of things, whom I call God, — cannot dislodge or alter one particle of the majestic system without involving the whole in complete catastrophe. It is our mistake to ‘chance’ things — at least, so I think. And if I exclaim against you and say,— “Why do you remain in the Church?’ it is because I cannot understand a man of conscience and intellect outwardly professing one thing while inwardly he means another. Because God will take him in the end at his own interior valuation, not at his outward seeming.”

  “Uncomfortable, if true,” said the Abbe, still smiling. “When one has been at infinite pains all one’s life to present a charmingly virtuous and noble aspect to the world, it would be indeed distressing if at the last moment one were obliged to lift the mask . . .”

  “Sometimes one is not given the chance to lift it,” interposed Angela, “It is torn off ruthlessly by a force greater than one’s own. ‘Call no man happy till his death,’ you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” and the Abbe settled himself in his chair more comfortably; — he loved an argument with “the Sovrani”, and was wont to declare that she was the only woman in the world who had ever made him wish to be a good man,— “But that maxim can be taken in two ways. It may mean that no man is happy till his death, — which I most potently believe, — or it may mean that a man is only JUDGED after his death, in which case it cannot be said to affect his happiness, as he is past caring whether people think ill or well of him. Besides, after death it must needs be all right, as every man is so particularly fortunate in his epitaph!”

  Angela smiled a little.

  “That is witty of you,” she said, “but the fact of every man having a kindly-worded epitaph only proves goodness of heart and feeling in his relatives and friends—”

  “Or gratitude for a fortune left to them in his will,” declared the Abbe gaily, “or a sense of relief that the dear creature has gone and will never come back. Either motive, would, I know, inspire me to write most pathetic verses! Now you bend your charming brows at me, — mea culpa! I have said something outrageous?”

  “Not from the point of view at which YOU take life,” said Angela quietly, “but I was just then thinking of a cousin of mine, — a very beautiful woman; her husband treated her with every possible sort of what I should term civil cruelty, — polite torture — refined agony. If he had struck her or shot her dead it would have been far kinder. But his conduct was worse than murder. He finally deserted her, and left her penniless to fight her own way through the world. Then he died suddenly, and she forgot all his faults, spoke of him as though he had been a model of goodness, and lives now for his memory, ever mourning his loss. In her case the feeling of regret had nothing to do with money, for he spent all her fortune and left her nothing even of her own. She has to work hard for her living now, — but she loves him and is as true to him as if he were still alive. What do you say to that?”

  “I say that the lady in question must be a charming person!” replied the Abbe, “Perfectly charming! But of course she is deceiving herself; and she takes pleasure in the self-deception. She knows that the man had deserted her and was quite unworthy of her devotion; — but she pretends to herself that she does NOT know. And it is charming, of course! But women will do that kind of thing. It is extraordinary, — but they will. They all deceive themselves in matters of love. Even you deceive yourself.”

  Angela started.

  “I?” she exclaimed.

  “Yes — you — why not?” And the Abbe treated her to one of his particularly paternal smiles. “You are betrothed to Florian Varillo, — but no man ever had or ever could have all the virtues with which you endow this excellent Florian. He is a delightful creature, — a good artist — unique in his own particular line, — but you think him something much greater than even artist or man — a sort of god, (though the gods themselves were not impeccable) only fit to be idealised. Now, I am not a believer in the gods, — but of course it is delightful to me to meet those who are.”

  “Signor Varillo needs neither praise nor defence,” said Angela with a slight touch of hauteur, “All the world knows what he is.”

  “Yes, precisely! That is just it, — all the world knows what he is,—” and the Abbe rubbed his forehead with an air of irritation, “And I am vexing you by my talk, I can see! Well, well! — You must forgive my garrulity; — I admit my faults — I am old — I am a cynic — I talk too much — I have a bad opinion of man, and an equally bad opinion of the Forces that evolved him. By the way, I met that terrible reformer and socialist Aubrey Leigh at the Embassy the other day — the man who is making such a sensation in England with his ‘Addresses to the People.’ He is quite an optimist, do you know? He believes in everything and everybody, — even in me!”

  Angela laughed, and her laughter sweet and low, thrilled the air with a sense of music.

  “That is wonderful!” she said gaily,— “Even in you! And how does he manage to believe in you, Monsieur l’Abbe? Do tell me!”

  A little frown wrinkled the Abbe’s brow.

  “Well! in a strange way,” he responded. “You know he is a very strange man and believes in very strange things. When I treat humanity as a jest — which is really how it should be treated — he looks at me with a grand air of tolerance, ‘Oh, you will progress;’ he says, ‘You are passing through a phase.’ ‘My dear sir,’ I assure him, ‘I have lived in this “phase”, as you call it, for forty years. I used to pray to the angels and saints and to all the different little Madonnas that live in different places, till I was twenty. Then I dropped all the pretty heaven-toys at once; — and since then I have believed in nothing — myself, least of all. Now I am sixty — and yet you tell me I am only passing through a phase.’ ‘Quite so,’ he answered me with the utmost coolness, ‘Your forty years — or your sixty years, are a Moment merely; — the Moment will pass — and you will find another Moment coming which will e
xplain the one which has just gone. Nothing is simpler.’ And when I ask him which will be the best Moment, — the one that goes, or the one that comes — he says that I am making the coming Moment for myself— ‘which is so satisfactory’ he adds with that bright smile of his, ‘because of course you will make it pleasant!’ ‘Il faut que tout homme trouve pour lui meme une possibilite particuliere de vie superieure dans l’humble et inevitable realite quotidienne.’ I do not find the ‘possibilite particuliere’ — but this man assures me it is because I do not trouble to look for it. What do you think about it?” Angela’s eyes were full of dreamy musing.

  “I think Mr. Leigh’s ideas are beautiful,” she said, slowly, “I have often heard him talk on the subject of religion — and of art, and of work, — and all he says seems to be the expression of a noble and sincere mind. He is extraordinarily gifted.”

  “Yes, — and he is becoming rather an alarming personage in England, so I hear,—” returned the Abbe— “He writes books that are distinctly dangerous, because true. He wants to upset shams like our Socialist writer Gys Grandit. Gys Grandit, you know, will never be satisfied till, like Rousseau, he has brought about another French Revolution. He is only a peasant, they say, but he writes with the pen of a prophet. And this Englishman is of the same calibre, — only his work is directed against religious hypocrisies more than social ones. I daresay that is why I always feel so uneasy in his presence!” And Vergniaud laughed lightly. “For the rest, he is a brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly. The other evening at the Club that little Vicomte de Lorgne was chattering in his usual offensive manner about women, and Leigh astonished everyone by the way in which he pulled him up. There was almost a very pretty quarrel, — but a stray man happened to mention casually, — that Leigh was considered one of the finest shots in England. After that the dear Vicomte vanished, and did not return.”