Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  And so it came to pass that after a little time the old tax-gatherer, Remorse, began to put Leonora in distress for his dues, and she was forced to pay them or have no peace. He came in the grey of the morning, when she was not yet prepared, and he sat by her head and oppressed it with heaviness and the leaden cowl of sorrow; and each day she counted the minutes until he was gone, and each day they were more.

  Julius saw and pondered, for he guessed what she suffered, and understood now her terrible recklessness at the first. All that a lover could do he did, and more also, employing every resource of his great mind to fight the enemy, and always with success. He could always bring the smile and the brightness of glad life to her face at last, and when once his dominion was established there was no return of sorrow possible for that day; his stupendous vitality and brilliant, overflowing strength fought down the shadows and chased them out.

  On the morning of the fourth of September, Leonora and Julius were walking together in the chestnut woods near the monastery. She had been less sad than usual at her first waking, and Julius hoped that the time was coming when she could at last feel accustomed to her new position and would cease to be troubled with the ghosts of the past. He was over-confident, and thought he understood her better than he really did. He was laughing and talking gayly enough, enjoying her happy mood and the freshness and beauty of the bountiful nature around him.

  Julius stopped from time to time and picked a few wild flowers that grew amongst the moss and the grass of the wood. Leonora loved flowers, and loved best those that grew wild. It was one of the few simple tastes she possessed.

  “It is not much of a nosegay,” said Julius, as he put the sweet blossoms together, and tied them with a blade of grass. “It is too late for the best wild flowers here.” He gave her the little bouquet with one hand, and the other stole about her waist and drew her to him.

  She smelled the flowers, and looked up at him over them, a little sadly.

  “The time will come, I suppose,” said she, “when there will be no more flowers at all.”

  “Never for you, darling,” he answered lovingly. “There will always be flowers for you — everywhere, till the end of time.”

  “What is the end of time, Julius?” she asked softly.

  “Time has no end for us, dear,” he said. “For time is measured by love, and nothing can measure ours.”

  They were near an old tree whose roots ran out and then struck down into the ground. The moss and the grass had grown closely about the great trunk’s foot, and made a broad seat. They sat down, by common accord.

  “Can there be no end to our love — ever?” she said.

  “Should we be where we are, if either of us thought it possible?” he asked.

  “It must be whole — it must be endless — indeed it must,” she answered — clinging to the thought which gave her most comfort.

  “Do you doubt that it is?” asked Julius, the strong earnestness of his passion vibrating in his deep tones.

  “No, darling,” she answered; “I do not doubt it — only you must never let me.”

  “Indeed, indeed, I never will!” said he. He meant what he said. Men are not all intentional deceivers, but they forget. They are less faithful than women, though they are often more earnest.

  Is it not the very highest power of love not to allow a doubt? And how many men can say that their lives have been so ordered toward the woman they love best, that no doubting should be reasonably possible in her mind? Few enough, I suppose.

  “I have been thinking a great deal lately, Julius,” said Leonora presently.

  “Tell me your thoughts, dear one,” said he, drawing her to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder, and his lips touched her hair.

  “You know, dear,” said she, “what we have done is not right — at least” — She stopped suddenly.

  “Who says it is not right?” asked Julius, with a touch of scorn in his voice.

  “Oh, everybody says so, of course; but that makes no difference. Nobody would understand. It is not what people say. It is the thing.” She stared out into the woods as she leaned against him.

  “How do you mean, sweetheart?” he asked.

  “It is not right, you know. I am sure of it.” She shook her head gently, without lifting it. “It is all my fault,” she added.

  “You shall not say that, my own one,” said Julius, passionately. He was really grieved and troubled beyond measure.

  “Ah — but I know it so well,” said she. “You must help me to make it right — quite right.”

  “It is right — it shall be right! I will make it so,” he answered. “Only trust me, darling, and you shall be the happiest woman the world holds, as you are the best. God bless you, dear one.” He kissed her tenderly, but she tried to turn away from him.

  “Oh, no, Julius — God will not bless me. I have only you left now. You must be everything to me. Will you, dear? Say you will!”

  “I do say it, my own darling,” he answered fervently. “I will be everything to you, now and forever and ever.”

  He was astonished and puzzled by the sudden outbreak. She had never spoken like this to him before, though he had expected it at first, and had wondered at her indifference. But now it seemed to have come upon her suddenly with a great force, and she would not be comforted.

  “And I say it, too,” she said, passionately. “I will be everything to you, now and forever and ever. We will give our lives to each other, and make it right.” She wound her arms about him, and hid her face against his coat.

  “How can true love, like ours, not be right?” asked Julius, clasping her to him. “God has put it into the world, dear, and into our hearts.”

  Oh, the blasphemy and the hollowness and the cruelty of those words! Even as Leonora lay in his arms and felt his kisses on her hair, loving her sinful love for him out to the last breath, she knew that it was not true, what he said so fervently, — and she knew that he did not believe it, that no man can believe a lie so great and wide and deep and awful.

  But the sun does not stand still in the heavens for a man’s lie; he hears too many untrue speeches, and sees too many false faces in his daily task of shining alike upon the just and the unjust — he is used to it and goes on his way; and time follows him, striving to keep pace and to swell the puny minutes of its pulse into an eternity.

  Such moments — when the rising sorrow and sense of shame that a woman feels are choked down and crushed by the overwhelming energy of falseness in the man she loves — are passionate, even terrible; and they may come often, but they never last long.

  Half an hour later, Julius and Leonora were wandering on through the woods, and their talk had taken again its ordinary course. The morning was passing, and as Batiscombe talked and amused and interested Leonora, her doubts and fears disappeared, for the time at least, and her old sense of enjoyment returned again, sweeter to her now than ever before, in proportion as it was more difficult for her to attain it. She was happy again, and the clouds were riven away and rent to shreds by the strong breath of her stirring passion.

  They walked for a while, and then returned to their midday breakfast and spent an hour over it in the cool, darkened hall, which had once been the refectory of the monastery, and was now the dining-room of the people who came to the water-cure. Julius had suggested to Leonora that they should have their breakfast and dinner in their own rooms, but she said she liked to see the people. It amused her to watch their faces and to wonder about them and criticise them. They were so unlike the people she had known hitherto, that there was a freshness of amusement to her in learning their ways.

  And by and by they had their coffee in a little sitting-room of their own that overlooked the torrent, and Julius smoked a cigarette and read the papers a little, amusing her with his daring comments on the conduct of nations and individuals. He was a man who was never afraid to say what he meant — not only to Leonora, over a cup of coffee in the summer, but to the world at large,
in his books and articles. That was one reason why the world at large always said he was an uncommonly fine fellow, with a great deal of pluck and judgment. For the world at large likes rough strength and keen wit, always understanding that the strong language is not applied to itself, but to its neighbour next door.

  At four o’clock Julius and Leonora went out again. Julius carried a pair of shawls and a book and Leonora’s silk bag with the silver rings — the same she had used to bring her handkerchiefs when she fled from Sorrento. They went into the garden and out among the laurels and the geraniums for a few minutes, but Julius was sure there would be more breeze outside, in the old summer-house over the water; for the garden was sheltered by high walls all around, and the sun was still hot, almost at its hottest at four o’clock on the fourth of September.

  Accordingly Julius took the things in his hands, and the two went out of the garden by the door in the wall and left it open. They walked down the short open path to the old summer-house, and Julius made Leonora very comfortable with the shawls for cushions upon the old, wooden bench, which many generations of people had hacked with their knives and adorned with the insignificance of their unknown names.

  Side by side they sat in the glory of the summer’s afternoon, and the birds perched on the grey old ribs of the summer-house and hopped upon the untrimmed creepers that grew thickly about it, making their small comments to each other about the two people who sat below them, and great green and pink grasshoppers skipped into the open space and out again, a perpetual astonishment in their round, red eyes; all nature was warm and peaceful and happy. The lovers talked together a little, enjoying the sense that speech was not always necessary nor even desirable.

  “How do you like the ‘Principe’?” Julius asked at last, glancing at the book that lay open on Leonora’s knee. He had given it to her to read, because she said she knew so little of Italian thought.

  “I hardly know,” she said. “It is very wonderful, of course. But I cannot quite believe that Machiavelli believed in it himself, nor that any one ever acted on the advice he gives. It is too complicated and unhuman.”

  “It always seems to me,” said Julius, taking up the question, “that he wrote like a man who inferred a great deal from his own experience — a great deal more than it is safe to infer. He knew men and women very well. He might have been a despotic lover.”

  “Why?” asked Leonora.

  “Do you notice that he always reckons, everywhere and without exception, on the heart of the people and on their personal affection for their sovereign? But he never takes into consideration the possible affection of the sovereign for his subjects.”

  “That is true,” said Leonora. “He was a very heartless individual.”

  “Perhaps — though I hardly think it,” answered Julius. “But he might have written a guide for despotic lovers much better than a book of instruction for tyrannical princes.”

  “What an idea!” said Leonora, laughing. “But I think he was heartless all the same. He only believed in the people’s hearts as a means for getting power.”

  “He never says so,” said Julius. “I rather think he loved the people, but knew them well — and he loved the ingenuities of his wit much better.”

  “If the heart does not come first, it never comes at all,” said Leonora thoughtfully. “If it does not rule it is ruled, and might as well never exist at all. Are you tyrannical, dear?” She smiled at him, knowing how he loved her.

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” said Julius, laughing; “but only about love.”

  “But that is just the question,” said Leonora. “You ought not to be. Your heart ought to come first.”

  “Yes, darling,” he answered. “The heart comes first, and the heart is a tyrant. Supposing my heart says to yours, ‘You shall love me; I will have it at any cost;’ is not that tyranny?”

  “Perhaps,” said Leonora, smiling and touching his hand. “But then it is quite a mutual tyranny, you know, because I say it to you, too, — and you do it.”

  “I always do everything you say, darling,” he answered lovingly.

  “Always?”

  “Always; — and I always will, Leonora.”

  “Do you think, Julius — it is a foolish question — do you think you would die for me, if it were necessary?”

  “You know I would, dear,” he said quietly.

  “Yes; I am sure you would,” she answered. “Do you know? I used to think that one ought to be willing to die for those one loves; and I like to think that you would give your life for me. Of course it could never happen — but then — Don’t laugh at me, Julius.”

  “Why should I laugh?” he said. “What you say is serious enough, I am sure.”

  “No — but I thought you might. You laugh at so many things — I am always afraid you will laugh at my love” —

  It was five o’clock.

  Marcantonio, issuing from the door in the garden wall, saw Julius and Leonora some twenty yards away, in the summer-house. He gave the servant a franc for showing him the way, and the man retired. He stood alone, watching the pair, for he could see them very distinctly. They were so placed that they would see him if they turned and looked upward, but they did not move, nor hear him. Leonora was nearest to him, and was leaning back a little, so that she could not see him; Batiscombe held her hand, and was looking at it, and gently caressing the fair, white fingers as he talked.

  Marcantonio turned away for a moment, and got out his revolver. It was clean and bright, and he had examined it, — but he would look once more, just to be sure there was a cartridge in each chamber, especially in that one beneath the barrels. One could not be too certain of one’s weapon. There was no mistake, — everything was in order. The hour was come.

  The hideous maniac smile played over his delicate features, and he stepped cautiously forward, holding the pistol behind him. Every step he gained before they observed him was an advantage. And besides, Leonora was between him and Batiscombe. It was not a fair shot, and it was too far.

  He did not want to kill her; he would take her home with him, when he had killed Julius Batiscombe. He had ordered the little carriage to wait for them. How happy she would be! Cautiously he moved on, ready for action if they saw him. He trod so softly, so softly, it was like velvet on the grass.

  Then, as he came nearer, — not ten paces off, — he brought his pistol before him and held it ready. So softly he had crept to them that they had not yet heard him, as the summer wind blew gently through the long grasses and the vines about the old bower, and made a sweet murmur of its own.

  — “I am always afraid you will laugh at my love” — Leonora was saying, but the words that were to follow were never spoken.

  Some slight sound caught her quick woman’s ear, and she looked up in the direction whence it came. There stood her husband, not ten paces from her, with an expression in his face which would have frozen the marrow in the bones of a wild beast.

  The clean polished barrel of the pistol was pointed full at Batiscombe. Leonora saw that, and saw that Marcantonio’s eyes were fixed on her lover and not on herself. Batiscombe saw it all as well as she, one second later. But that one second was enough.

  With a spring and a clutching turn, as a tigress will cover her young with herself and turn glaring on her pursuers, Leonora threw her strong, lithe body upon Julius, forcing him back to his seat, and she turned and looked Marcantonio in the face. Their eyes met for one moment. But it was too late: the finger had pulled the trigger and the ball sped true.

  Without a sound, without a cry, she fell upon her lover’s breast. There she fell, there she died.

  From the death wound the heart’s blood fell in great drops; it fell down to the ground.

  She died for his sake whom she loved; she died, she gave for him her life, the joy and the woe and the love of it for his sake.

  Do you ask what is the moral of this? Ask it of yourselves.

  Ask it of that quiet man, with delicate features and snow
-white hair, who drives in the Villa Borghese. He is well-known in Rome for his honesty, his honour, and his unaffected good sense. He is the Marchese Carantoni, he is Marcantonio, and he is not yet forty years of age.

  Ask it of Diana de Charleroi, — Duchesse de Charleroi now, for her husband has succeeded to the elder title. Ask it of her, the mother of brave boys and noble maidens. She has her beauty still, she is as stately as of yore, and grander in the crown of mature womanhood. But there is a streak of grey even in her fair hair, and a line of sorrow on her forehead, the masterly handwriting of a mastering grief; and her grey eyes are softer and sadder than they were ten years ago.

  Ask it of Julius Batiscombe, — but of him you will ask in vain. He has the mark of a bullet in his throat, Marcantonio’s second shot, that was so nearly fatal to him. He stood aside from the world for a while, and lived a year or two among the monks of Subiaco; he manifested some devotion for her sake who had died for him. And now he is writing novels again, and smoking cigarettes between the phrases, to help his ideas and to stimulate his imagination.

  A Roman Singer

  First published in book format in May 1884 by Macmillan & Co in London and Houghton Mifflin in Boston, A Roman Singer was a commercial success and over the next eight years there were more than 17,000 copies printed for sale by Houghton Mifflin. Crawford began writing the novel at the start of 1883 and finished it seven weeks later on 21 February. In July, The Atlantic Monthly began its serialisation of the novel, which would complete its run in the June 1884 edition. Crawford spent much of 1883 writing articles for various newspapers and magazines while spending the majority of the year in Europe with his mother and beloved Uncle Sam. While he had a relaxing summer with his family, he fell ill in the autumn and would thereafter be plagued by recurring bouts of sickness throughout his life.