Let Love Come Last

by Taylor Caldwell

“No.” There was vehemence in Matthew’s voice.

  “Ah, but yes. You have given us so many lire for the monastero and the school.”

  “I did it for you.”

  The old monk smiled wisely, and spread out his hands. “How you deny yourself, Signore! ‘I did it for you,’ you say, and just a moment ago you denied that you have ever looked beyond yourself.”

  The bells echoed over the ocean, whose wine-colored waters flowed far below. The mountains beyond rippled in gold. Fra Leonardo lifted himself heavily to his feet. He put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “God be with you, my son,” he said. “Good-night.”

  CHAPTER LII

  Reverently, as if the big canvas were the relic of a saint, the two monks lifted it in their arms and carried it towards the monastero, with Matthew walking behind them. He might have been amused, or impatient, had he known what they were thinking, these simple and sophisticated men: Ah, now the rich tourists would soon begin to come to this village! Soon, fame would descend upon it, for the great artist, Signor Prescott, had painted its incomparable view, and had deigned to live among its people! Amalfi! Sorrento! They were living on past glories. This village would soon lift its head proudly; it would be a shrine. A fabulous hotel, perhaps, to surpass anything that existed in Capri; a refurbished chapel! The old monks walked with assurance, lifted the canvas high.

  The abbot, a stern and dignified elderly man, met the monks and Matthew in the cool blue shadows within the monastero door. He was a small man, but he had majesty and hauteur. He gave Matthew the faintest of smiles, saluted him in purest Roman, to which Matthew replied with brief stateliness. The abbot did not reveal his really enormous curiosity. While Matthew had been painting in the gardens the abbot had not allowed this curiosity to cause him to wander there—not even for a single glimpse. The abbot was not a simple man, nor one given to fantasy or romancing. He doubted very much that this village had sheltered a hidden artist, distinguished or destined to become famous, and the prattlings of his monks had irritated him. However, it had been written to him from the cities that Signor Prescott was reputed to be the son of a rich Americano. The abbot, always a realist, considered the fact with satisfaction.

  Even now, as the monks carefully carried the canvas, the abbot did not allow his eye to scan the painting. Each evening, it had been brought, still unfinished, within the monastero; the next day it had been brought out, for the “master.” The abbot had heard delirious rumors about its beauty and “genius.” He had merely made his small stern face even more forbidding, and had turned away.

  It was finished, now. The monks were bearing it through the shadowy halls towards Fra Leonardo’s cell, Matthew still following. The abbot hesitated, then followed also. On strict orders from the abbot, no one was visibly about. Nevertheless, quiet and noiseless though the monastero seemed on this early evening, the ancient building vibrated with ebullience. The little procession wandered through a colonnade of white stone pillars looking out upon the chiostro where the monks paced. Not a monk lifted his head but, as they caught a glimpse of the others moving in and out of the shadows of the pillars, a wave of electrification passed through them.

  The abbot murmured to Matthew: “Fra Leonardo has been removed to a high cell, Signore, where the evening sunlight can strike, appropriately, upon a certain wall.”

  “Thank you, my father,” replied Matthew gravely. After that, they did not speak. The abbot wondered vaguely whether all this was not very irregular. It did not matter. He was really attached to that simple old peasant, Fra Leonardo, so beloved of the rich signore, who, to show his fondness for the monk, had given so incredibly many lire to this monastero. The abbot smiled slightly to himself. He had always suspected that the lire had been a bribe.

  By way of many winding staircases and corridors, clean and austere, full of violet light, the procession had at last reached the cell. The abbot, himself, opened the wooden door. Instantly, the evening sunshine struck into the corridor, in a wild blaze of glory. Fra Leonardo lay on his cot, eagerly waiting for his friend. He did not immediately see the abbot and the monks, and the burden they were carrying. He cried: “My friend, my dear friend! See, they have been so kind. They have carried my old carcass up here, where I can see the sun, though, unfortunately, I cannot as yet see the ocean and the mountains!” Now he became aware of the others, and was much agitated.

  “Calm yourself, my son,” said the abbot, in a gentle voice. “No, do not move. It is forbidden by the physician. Your friend,” he added, very kindly, “has brought you a gift, which he himself executed, for you.” Matthew was already standing beside the cot where his old friend lay, and he had taken the cold brown hand in both of his. Two weeks ago, the monk had been stricken by apoplexy and, for two weeks now, he had lain on his bed, partially paralysed. There was no hope for him; the paralysis was spreading upwards from his motionless legs. His left arm, too, was already helpless. But his mind was clear, he could speak and eat, and drink a little wine, and even laugh as he waited patiently for death. The physician had expressed himself amazed at the old man’s vitality and love of life, which kept death so resolutely at bay.

  Yet in two short weeks the brown flesh had withered and shrunk; the huge dome of the skull now crowned a face which had fallen away almost to nothing. But the eyes glinted and danced and beamed with indomitable life.

  “Dear friend,” he said fondly to Matthew, “I wait each day for your arrival. Tell me, is the sea like wine tonight, or like gold? Is there a plume of fire over Vesuvio, or is the old devil sleeping this evening?”

  “The sea,” said Matthew, “is both wine and gold, and Vesuvio is sleeping, and the jasmine fills all the air.”

  “Yes,” said the monk, with ecstasy, “I can smell it through my window. Tell me,” he went on with some anxiety, “how is my garden?”

  “Waiting for you,” said Matthew.

  The monk glanced down at the coarse blanket which covered his legs. “I shall soon be rid of these,” he murmured. “I shall soon be free, and then I shall visit my garden and see for myself.”

  In the meantime, the abbot had, with silent gestures, been giving orders to the monks. One of them had climbed on a stool. There was the sound of sharp hammer blows on the wall, breaking into the monastero quiet. Fra Leonardo started. Matthew moved aside. “What is this?” asked Fra Leonardo, surprised. Then, he became aware that the abbot was still in the room. Respectfully, he faltered: “Father, I do not understand this. Why is Fra Lorenzo driving a nail into my wall?”

  “Wait,” said the abbot, with his frigid smile.

  The evening sun struck vividly on the white plaster wall. Now the other monk was lifting the canvas and Fra Lorenzo, from his perch on the stool, was assisting. Fra Leonardo stared. He attempted to lift himself. The abbot, that most stately and aristocratic of men, went to Matthew’s aid when the young man tried to lift the old monk to a sitting position. They dragged him to the head of his cot; they pushed a pillow behind shoulders still massive. He did not look at them; he was not conscious of them. He could look only at the canvas now being settled in that blaze of evening light upon his wall, that big canvas which seemed more like a window opening onto sea and sky than a mere painting.

  Fra Leonardo lay on his pillows and in the arms of the two men, perfectly motionless, all his life in his face. He could not speak; but slowly, one by one, the tears began to well from his eyes, run into the brown and sunken furrows of his cheeks, lie in the pits about his smiling mouth. He lifted his right hand and crossed himself; he smiled, and sighed, and panted a little. His tears ran faster.

  The abbot straightened up, turned to the canvas. He was astounded. He was a cultivated man, well acquainted with art and artists. He could not believe what he was seeing.

  The canvas had been painted from the gardens where Fra Leonardo had worked every day, and it had been painted from his favorite spot. Now before him lay, to the left, the tumbling purple shadows of the mountains against a western sky of medieva
l gilt, fuming in a drift of magenta clouds and reflecting itself in far waters of flowing gold. Closer, still to the left, on the dark mountainside, which was patched with green and silver, climbed the vari-colored cluster of Sorrento. Directly ahead, the deep violet waters of the nearer sea glided to the strong blue of Vesuvio, which was of such a brilliance that it dazzled the eye. The slender sails of the fishing boats floated out upon the ocean, touched with scarlet. In the foreground, the mountain fell briefly away; there was a red roof or two, the side of a pink or white wall, far below.

  No one in the cell spoke. But all at once it was as though a signal had been given. The sweet far fluttering of campanile bells invaded the cell; a wind wafted in the scent of jasmine; the songs of the fishermen came faintly, sweetly, purely, from the sea.

  “Magnificent!” murmured the abbot, overcome. The monks could only gaze, reverently, as at the manifestation of a Saint.

  As the sunlight beat exultantly upon it, increasing its incandescence, the painting filled the little cell with radiance. Again, it was really a large window, obliterating the plaster wall.

  Fra Leonardo lay there, and gazed with passionate absorption; he blinked away his tears. After a long time, he looked at Matthew. He tried to speak. No words could come from him. His cold fingers clung to Matthew’s hand. His dying face brightened until it had a light of its own, so great was his joy.

  “I did it for you, Fra Leonardo,” said Matthew. “I did it only for you, to bring what you love into this cell.”

  As the sun changed and fell, outside, the painting appeared to change, also. The colors became more vivid, but deeper, as if creating a twilight of their own. The gold became more intense, the purple darker and stronger. It was alive, this canvas, thought the abbot. But his exigent mind was already racing. Was this marvel a gift to Fra Leonardo, his for what few days remained to him? Or would this gentleman leave it here in the monastero, for the wonder of visitors?

  Fra Leonardo whispered: “It is for me, this, my son? You painted it—for me?”

  “Yes,” replied Matthew. “Only for you. And always, if you wish it, and the abbot permits, it shall remain here.”

  The abbot smiled. He said to the monk: “Through you, my son, a miracle has occurred.”

  Fra Leonardo, however, looked deeply into Matthew’s eyes. He whispered: “Yes. Yes, by the grace of God, a miracle has occurred.”

  Sweat stood in big cold drops on his forehead. Matthew gently wiped them away. The living joy on the old man’s face moved him as he had never before been moved. The life that had lain buried in him so long, under stones of selfishness and self-preoccupation, stirred powerfully, rose, and took hold of him with a kind of passionate exultation.

  Fra Leonardo leaned his head against Matthew’s breast, rested in the strength of Matthew’s arms. His eyes clung to the painting. He did not speak again.

  He died, a week later, with Matthew beside him. But, to the very last, he looked only at the canvas on his wall and, in the final moments, joy lay like the sun itself on his face.

  Two weeks after the old man had been laid to rest in the monastero cemetery, Matthew came to the abbot.

  “I came to ask permission, Father, to paint in these gardens,” he said. “I shall continue to live in the village. There is much to paint there, also: the women at the well, the winding streets with their walls overhung with roses, the faces of the children, the fishermen, the monastero—so many things, endless things. A lifetime is not enough in which to paint them.”

  “Yes,” said the abbot, who had begun to see what he had never seen before.

  Matthew laid down a bundle of lire. “My father is a rich man. I understand that he has established a large trust fund for me, in the event of his death. I want nothing of money, just enough to shelter me and to give me food. Above these, the rest belongs to you and to the monastero.” He sighed. “It was always Fra Leonardo’s wish that the monastero have a finer and more beautiful chapel. Perhaps my money can assist you in this dream of his.” He looked away from the abbot. He said: “And what I paint is for the monastero, also, to be disposed of, or retained, as you may wish.”

  He added: “It is a very strange thing, but I do not believe Fra Leonardo has gone away.”

  CHAPTER LIII

  It was to see her house again, as it used to be, rather than for any other and possibly better reason, that Ursula had come here this cold winter day. She came very often, sometimes twice a week, but Barbara was not deceived that it was affection that brought her mother, unless it was affection for the house. Or perhaps there was here some unconscious refuge, a return to days when life was not so mournful and so desolate.

  Ursula, gaunt and haggard, sat in the little parlor and looked about her with something like a vague peace upon her features. The tired restlessness was diminishing moment by moment; the anxiety on her puckered mouth softened. She sat there, in her loosened sables, slowly removing her gloves. Her thin gray hair rose in a pompadour under her wide felt hat. It only made the face beneath it more old, more weary. The firelight glimmered on her gold wedding-band, on the gold watch on her jacket. Barbara, her gray eyes observant and shrewd, regarded her mother somewhat sadly. Her young face was very firm and mature; her posture, too, was firm and a little uncompromising.

  Ursula continued to look about her, and to sniff unobtrusively. Yes, the house was the same; the scent of old leather and wax and burning wood brought back memories dear and sweet and calm. Even the light which came in the windows was the eternal light she remembered, a light dimmed and quiet. The panelled walls glimmered, as they had glimmered when she had been a girl. The crack in one of them gave her a peculiar sense of pleasant disorientation. It suggested timelessness to her, for she recalled noticing it as a child.

  “Shall we have tea now, Mama?” asked Barbara, in her severe young voice.

  “No, dear. Not immediately, if you please,” said Ursula. She was content, for a while, to be home. She did not look at Barbara, nor at the baby on Barbara’s knee. Perhaps, she did not wish to see her daughter fully and completely. Once, long ago, friends had told her that Barbara strongly resembled her; Ursula had dismissed this as nonsense. There had been a faint displeasure in her voice when she had lightly denied what was most evident, and they had not mentioned it again.

  Barbara fondled her baby, who was almost two years old, abstractedly. He was very good, and very serious. He smiled at his mother affectionately, and if he was at all restless, he was well-trained enough to repress it. He had Barbara’s eyes and coloring; he also had Oliver’s gentleness of expression. He eyed Ursula, now, thoughtfully. He squirmed a little. He reached up and tugged at the gold chain about his mother’s throat. She tapped his hand decisively. “No,” she said, quietly but firmly. “Billy mustn’t touch.”

  Ursula brought her gaze back from the windows and regarded her daughter and grandson. A slight frown drew her faded brows together. Barbara said, with loving inflexibility: “This is one youngster who is going to learn how to behave, if I have to spank him to a bright scarlet on an unmentionable spot. He’s not going to be a brat, a curse to himself and a misery to others.”

  Ursula’s frown deepened, and her withered cheeks flushed a trifle. She held out her hand to the baby. “Come to Grandma, darling,” she said.

  The baby stared at her hand, looked up questioningly at his mother. She put him on his feet, straightened his embroidered bib, patted him on the head. “Go to Grandma,” she commanded.

  He tottered to Ursula, carefully watching each step. He reminded her of Oliver, at Billy’s age, when he had come to her across this very rug, seriously, but with a smile. She almost withdrew her hand. Then she caught up the child and kissed him with trembling lips. The child kissed her rather wetly, became engrossed in her watch, fingering it roughly. “Billy,” said Barbara, with hard clearness. The child subsided upon Ursula’s knee, lost interest, and yawned.

  “He wasn’t harming the watch,” protested Ursula. The flush was still
on her cheeks, and her tone was resentful.

  “He has to learn not to touch what doesn’t belong to him,” replied Barbara. She met her mother’s eyes straightly. “He has his rights, of course, but only when they don’t infringe on the rights of others.”

  Ursula was silent. Barbara, she told herself, was hard. She was unbending. She was a wife and a mother, but there was something spinsterish and too decided about her.

  Barbara could guess her mother’s thoughts. She was saddened, but she was also indignant. She thinks I am implying a criticism of Papa, she commented to herself. Well, I am. Poor, poor Mama! Long ago, she made up her mind that nothing but Papa mattered, and she set herself up as a wall of protection between Papa and his children.

  Barbara tried to quell her mournful indignation, to drown it in her pity. Oliver was always arguing with her, reproaching her that she was obdurate. Barbara sighed. But it was irritating, and regrettable, that a woman intrinsically as intelligent and as just as Mama could become nothing but a watchman for a man who had already ruined his children.

  Barbara touched the bell-rope. “It’s time for Billy’s supper, and for bed,” she remarked.

  “Oh, it’s quite early yet,” murmured Ursula, holding the child to her.

  Barbara glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Five,” she said. A little nursemaid came in. Billy, however, was not reconciled to going. With a child’s acuteness, he sensed the current between mother and grandmother. He whimpered, hid his face against Ursula’s breast. Ursula’s arms tightened. “Billy,” said Barbara, sharply.

  At that loving but determined voice, the child lifted his head, gave Ursula a resigned smile, slipped off her knee and ran to his nurse. The girl bent with him, and the baby kissed his mother. “Good boy. Good Billy,” she said, approvingly. “Now Billy will have his dinner and go to bed. Say good-night to Grandma, darling.”

  The child obediently uttered the equivalent of this, laughed, and allowed his nurse to carry him off. Barbara touched the bell-rope again. “It really is time for tea,” she said, smiling.