Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Perhaps she is dead,” suggested Donna Tullia, her face suddenly growing grave.

  “Why? He would not have taken the trouble to kill her — a peasant girl in the Abruzzi! He would have had no difficulty in leaving her, and she is probably alive and well at the present moment, perhaps the mother of the future Prince Saracinesca — who can tell?”

  “But do you not see,” said Donna Tullia, “that unless you have proof that she is alive, we have no hold upon him? He may acknowledge the whole thing, and calmly inform us that she is dead.”

  “That is true; but even then he must show that she came to a natural end and was buried. Believe me, Giovanni would relinquish all intentions of marrying the Astrardente rather than have this scandalous story published.”

  “I would like to tax him with it in a point-blank question, and watch his face,” said Donna Tullia, fiercely.

  “Remember your oath,” said Del Ferice. “But he is gone now. You will not meet him for some months.”

  “Tell me, how could you make use of this knowledge, if you really wanted to prevent his marriage with the Astrardente?”

  “I would advise you to go to her and state the case. You need mention nobody. Any one who chooses may go to Aquila and examine the registers. I think that you could convey the information to her with as much command of language as would be necessary.”

  “I daresay I could,” she answered, between her teeth. “What a strange chance it was that brought that register under your hand!”

  “Heaven sends opportunities,” said Del Ferice, devoutly; “it is for man to make good use of them. Who knows but what you may make a brilliant use of this?”

  “I cannot, since I am bound by my promise,” said Donna Tullia.

  “No; I am sure you will not think of doing it. But then, we might perhaps agree that circumstances made it advisable to act. Many months must pass before he can think of offering himself to her. It will be time enough to consider the matter then — to consider whether we should be justified in raising such a terrible scandal, in causing so much unhappiness to an innocent woman like the Duchessa, and to a worthless man like Don Giovanni. Think what a disgrace it would be to the Saracinesca to have it made public that Giovanni was openly engaged to marry a great heiress while already secretly married to a peasant woman!”

  “It would indeed be horrible,” said Donna Tullia, with a disagreeable look in her blue eyes. “Perhaps we should not even think of it,” she added, turning over the leaves of the music upon the piano. Then suddenly she added, “Do you know that you have put me in a dreadful position by exacting that promise from me?”

  “No,” said Del Ferice, quietly. “You wanted to hear the secret. You have heard it. You have nothing to do but to keep it to yourself.”

  “That is precisely—” She checked herself, and struck a loud chord upon the instrument. She had turned from Del Ferice, and could not see the smile upon his face, which flickered across the pale features and vanished instantly.

  “Think no more about it,” he said pleasantly. “It is so easy to forget such stories when one resolutely puts them out of one’s mind.”

  Donna Tullia smiled bitterly, and was silent. She began playing from the sheet before her, with indifferent accuracy, but with more than sufficient energy. Del Ferice sat patiently by her side, turning over the leaves, and glancing from time to time at her face, which he really admired exceedingly. He belonged to the type of pale and somewhat phlegmatic men who frequently fall in love with women of sanguine complexion and robust appearance. Donna Tullia was a fine type of this class, and was called handsome, though she did not compare well with women of less pretension to beauty, but more delicacy and refinement. Del Ferice admired her greatly, however; and, as has been said, he admired her fortune even more. He saw himself gradually approaching the goal of his intentions, and as he neared the desired end he grew more and more cautious. He had played one of his strongest cards that night, and he was content to wait and let matters develop quietly, without any more pushing from him. The seed would grow, there was no fear of that, and his position was strong. He could wait quietly for the result.

  At the end of half an hour he excused himself upon the plea that he was still only convalescent, and was unable to bear the fatigue of late hours. Donna Tullia did not press him to stay, for she wished to be alone; and when he was gone she sat long at the open piano, pondering upon what she had done, and even more upon what she had escaped doing. It was a hideous thought that if Giovanni, in all that long winter, had asked her to be his wife, she would readily have consented; it was fearful to think what her position would have been towards Del Ferice, who would have been able by a mere word to annul her marriage by proving the previous one at Aquila. People do not trifle with such accusations, and he certainly knew what he was doing; she would have been bound hand and foot. Or supposing that Del Ferice had died of the wound he received in the duel, and his papers had been ransacked by his heirs, whoever they might be — these attested documents would have become public property. What a narrow escape Giovanni had had! And she herself, too, how nearly had she been involved in his ruin! She liked to think that he had almost offered himself to her; it flattered her, although she now hated him so cordially. She could not help admiring Del Ferice’s wonderful discretion in so long concealing a piece of scandal that would have shaken Roman society to its foundations, and she trembled when she thought what would happen if she herself were ever tempted to reveal what she had heard. Del Ferice was certainly a man of genius — so quiet, and yet possessing such weapons; there was some generosity about him too, or he would have revenged himself for his wound by destroying Giovanni’s reputation. She considered whether she could have kept her counsel so well in his place. After all, as he had said, the moment for using the documents had not yet come, for hitherto Giovanni had never proposed to marry any one. Perhaps this secret wedding in Aquila explained his celibacy; Del Ferice had perhaps misjudged him in saying that he was unscrupulous; he had perhaps left his peasant wife, repenting of his folly, but it was perhaps on her account that he had never proposed to marry Donna Tullia; he had, then, only been amusing himself with Corona. That all seemed likely enough — so likely, that it heightened the certainty of Del Ferice’s information.

  A few days later, as Giovanni had intended, news began to reach Rome that he had been in Florence, and was actually in Paris; then it was said that he was going upon a shooting expedition somewhere in the far north during the summer. It was like him, and in accordance with his tastes. He hated the quiet receptions at the great houses during Lent, to which, if he remained in Rome, he was obliged to go. He naturally escaped when he could. But there was no escape for Donna Tullia, and after all she managed to extract some amusement from these gatherings. She was the acknowledged centre of the more noisy set, and wherever she went, people who wanted to be amused, and were willing to amuse each other, congregated around her. On one of these occasions she met old Saracinesca. He did not go out much since his son had left; but he seemed cheerful enough, and as he liked Madame Mayer, for some inscrutable reason, she rather liked him. Moreover, her interest in Giovanni, though now the very reverse of affectionate, made her anxious to know something of his movements.

  “You must be lonely since Don Giovanni has gone upon his travels again,” she said.

  “That is the reason I go out,” said the Prince. “It is not very gay, but it is better than nothing. It suggests cold meat served up after the dessert; but when people are hungry, the order of their food is not of much importance.”

  “Is there any news, Prince? I want to be amused.”

  “News? No. The world is at peace, and consequently given over to sin, as it mostly is when it is resting from a fit of violence.”

  “You seem to be inclined to moralities this evening,” said Donna Tullia, smiling, and gently swaying the red fan she always carried.

  “Am I? Then I am growing old, I suppose. It is the privilege of old age to censure
in others what it is no longer young enough to praise in itself. It is a bad thing to grow old, but it makes people good, or makes them think they are, which in their own eyes is precisely the same thing.”

  “How delightfully cynical!”

  “Doggish?” inquired the Prince, with a laugh. “I have heard it said by scholars, that cynical means doggish in Greek. The fable of the dog in the horse’s manger was invented to define the real cynic — the man who neither enjoys life himself nor will allow other people to enjoy it. I am not such a man. I hope you, for instance, will enjoy everything that comes in your way.”

  “Even the cold meat after the dessert which you spoke of just now?” asked

  Donna Tullia. “Thank you — I will try; perhaps you can help me.”

  “My son despised it,” said Saracinesca. “He is gone in search of fresh pastures of sweets.”

  “Leaving you behind.”

  “Somebody once said that the wisest thing a son could do was to get rid of his father as soon as possible—”

  “Then Don Giovanni is a wise man,” returned Donna Tullia.

  “Perhaps. However, he asked me to accompany him.”

  “You refused?”

  “Of course. Such expeditions are good enough for boys. I dislike Florence, I am not especially fond of Paris, and I detest the North Pole. I suppose you have seen from the papers that he is going in that direction? It is like him, he hankers after originality, I suppose. Being born in the south, he naturally goes to the extreme north.”

  “He will write you very interesting letters, I should think,” remarked

  Donna Tullia. “Is he a good correspondent?”

  “Remarkably, for he never gives one any trouble. He sends his address from time to time, and draws frequently on his banker. His letters are not so full of interest as might be thought, as they rarely extend over five lines; but on the other hand it does not take long to read them, which is a blessing.”

  “You seem to be an affectionate parent,” said Donna Tullia, with a laugh.

  “If you measure affection by the cost of postage-stamps, you have a right to be sarcastic. If you measure it in any other way, you are wrong. I could not help loving any one so like myself as my son. It would show a detestable lack of appreciation of my own gifts.”

  “I do not think Don Giovanni so very like you,” said Donna Tullia, thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps you do not know him so well as I do,” remarked the Prince.

  “Where do you see the greatest difference?”

  “I think you talk better, and I think you are more — not exactly more honest, perhaps, but more straightforward.”

  “I do not agree with you,” said old Saracinesca, quickly. “There is no one alive who can say they ever knew Giovanni approach in the most innocent way to a distortion of truth. I daresay you have discovered, however, that he is reticent; he can hold his tongue; he is no chatterer, no parrot, my son.”

  “Indeed he is not,” answered Donna Tullia, and the reply pacified the old man; but she herself was thinking what supreme reticence Giovanni had shown in the matter of his marriage, and she wondered whether the Prince had ever heard of it.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  ANASTASE GOUACHE WORKED hard at the Cardinal’s portrait, and at the same time did his best to satisfy Donna Tullia. The latter, indeed, was not easily pleased, and Gouache found it hard to instil into his representation of her the precise amount of poetry she required, without doing violence to his own artistic sense of fitness. But the other picture progressed rapidly. The Cardinal was a restless man, and after the first two or three sittings, desired nothing so much as to be done with them altogether. Anastase amused him, it is true, and the statesman soon perceived that he had made a conquest of the young man’s mind, and that, as Giovanni Saracinesca had predicted, he had helped Gouache to come to a decision. He was not prepared, however, for the practical turn that decision immediately took, and he was just beginning to wish the sittings at an end when Anastase surprised him by a very startling announcement.

  As usual, they were in the Cardinal’s study; the statesman was silent and thoughtful, and Gouache was working with all his might.

  “I have made up my mind,” said the latter, suddenly.

  “Concerning what, my friend?” inquired the great man, rather absently.

  “Concerning everything, Eminence,” answered Gouache “concerning politics, religion, life, death, and everything else which belongs to my career. I am going to enlist with the Zouaves.”

  The Cardinal looked at him for a moment, and then broke into a low laugh.

  “Extremis malis extrema remedial!” he exclaimed.

  “Precisely — aux grands maux les grands remèdes, as we say. I am going to join the Church militant. I am convinced that it is the best thing an honest man can do. I like fighting, and I like the Church — therefore I will fight for the Church.”

  “Very good logic, indeed,” answered the Cardinal. But he looked at Anastase, and marking his delicate features and light frame, he almost wondered how the lad would look in the garb of a soldier. “Very good logic; but, my dear Monsieur Gouache, what is to become of your art?”

  “I shall not be mounting guard all day, and the Zouaves are allowed to live in their own lodgings. I will live in my studio, and paint when I am not mounting guard.”

  “And my portrait?” inquired Cardinal Antonelli, much amused.

  “Your Eminence will doubtless be kind enough to manage that I may have liberty to finish it.”

  “You could not put off enlisting for a week, I suppose?”

  Gouache looked annoyed; he hated the idea of waiting.

  “I have taken too long to make up my mind already,” he replied. “I must make the plunge at once. I am convinced — your Eminence has convinced me — that I have been very foolish.”

  “I certainly never intended to convince you of that,” remarked the

  Cardinal, with a smile.

  “Very foolish,” repeated Gouache, not heeding the interruption. “I have talked great nonsense, — I scarcely know why — perhaps to try and find where the sense really lay. I have dreamed so many dreams, so long, that I sometimes think I am morbid. All artists are morbid, I suppose. It is better to do anything active than to lose one’s self in the slums of a sickly imagination.”

  “I agree with you,” answered the Cardinal; “but I do not think you suffered from a sickly imagination, — I should rather call it abundant than sickly. Frankly, I should be sorry to think that in following this new idea you were in any way injuring the great career which, I am sure, is before you; but, on the other hand, I cannot help wishing that a greater number of young men would follow your example.”

  “Your Eminence approves, then?”

  “Do you think you will make a good soldier?”

  “Other artists have been good soldiers. There was Cellini—”

  “Benvenuto Cellini said he made a good soldier; he said it himself, but his reputation for veracity in other matters was doubtful, to say the least. If he did not shoot the Connétable de Bourbon, it is very certain that some one else did. Besides, a soldier in our times should be a very different kind of man from the self-armed citizen of the time of Clement the Ninth and the aforesaid Connétable. You will have to wear a uniform and sleep on boards in a guard-house; you will have to be up early to drill, and up late mounting guard, in wind and rain and cold. It is hard work; I do not believe you have the constitution for it. Nevertheless, the intention is good. You can try it, and if you fall ill I will see that you have no difficulty in returning to your artist life.”

  “I do not mean to give it up,” replied Gouache, in a tone of conviction.

  “And as for my health, I am as strong as any one.”

  “Perhaps,” said the Cardinal, doubtfully. “And when are you going to join the corps?”

  “In about an hour,” said Gouache, quietly.

  And he kept his word. But he had told no one, save the Ca
rdinal, of his intention; and for a day or two, though he passed many acquaintances in the street, no one recognised Anastase Gouache in the handsome young soldier with his grey Turco uniform, a red sash round his slender waist, and a small képi set jauntily upon one side.

  It was one of the phenomena of those times. Foreigners swarmed in Rome, and many of them joined the cosmopolitan corps — gentlemen, noblemen, artists, men of the learned professions, adventurers, duellists driven from their country in a temporary exile, enthusiasts, strolling Irishmen, men of all sorts and conditions. But, take them all in all, they were a fine set of fellows, who set no value whatever on their lives, and who, as a whole, fought for an idea, in the old crusading spirit. There were many who, like Gouache, joined solely from conviction; and there were few instances indeed of any who, having joined, deserted. It often happened that a stranger came to Rome for a mere visit, and at the end of a month surprised his friends by appearing in the grey uniform. You had met him the night before at a ball in the ordinary garb of civilisation, covered with cotillon favours, waltzing like a madman; the next morning he entered the Café de Rome in a braided jacket open at the throat, and told you he was a soldier — a private soldier, who touched his cap to every corporal of the French infantry, and was liable to be locked up for twenty-four hours if he was late to quarters.

  Donna Tullia’s portrait was not quite finished, and Gouache had asked for one or two more sittings. Three days after the artist had taken his great resolution, Madame Mayer and Del Ferice entered his studio. He had had no difficulty in being at liberty at the hour of the sitting, and had merely exchanged his jacket for an old painting-coat, not taking the trouble to divest himself of the remainder of his uniform.