There was a sort of mournful reproach about the old Prince’s tone, as though he were reproving his son for having fallen from the paths of virtue. Corona laughed; she was not hard-hearted, but she was not so angelic of nature as to be beyond feeling deep and lasting resentment for injuries received. At that moment the idea of bringing Donna Tullia to justice was pleasant.
“Well,” said Giovanni, “no human being can boast of having ever prevented you from doing whatever you were determined to do. The best thing that can happen will be, that you should find the papers genuine, and my namesake alive. I wish Aquila were Florence or Naples,” he added, turning to Corona; “you might manage to go at the same time.”
“That is impossible,” she answered, sadly. “How long will you be gone, do you think?”
Giovanni did not believe that, if the papers were genuine, and if they had to search for the man mentioned in them, they could return in less than a fortnight.
“Why not send a detective — a sbirro?” suggested Corona.
“He could not accomplish anything,” replied the Prince.
“He would be at a great disadvantage there; we must go ourselves.”
“Both?” asked Corona, regretfully, gazing at Giovanni’s face.
“It is my business,” replied the latter. “I can hardly ask my father to go alone.”
“Absurd!” exclaimed the old Prince, resenting the idea that he needed any help to accomplish his mission. “Do you think I need some one to take care of me, like a baby in arms? I will go alone; you shall not come even if you wish it. Absurd, to talk of my needing anybody with me! I will show you what your father can do when his blood is up.”
Protestations were useless after that. The old man grew angry at the opposition, and, regardless of all propriety, seized his hat and left the room, growling that he was as good as anybody, and a great deal better.
Corona and Giovanni looked at each other when he was gone, and smiled.
“I believe my father is the best man alive,” said Giovanni. “He would go in a moment if I would let him. I will go after him and bring him back — I suppose I ought.”
“I suppose so,” answered Corona; but as they stood side by side, she passed her hand under his arm affectionately, and looked into his eyes. It was a very tender look, very loving and gentle — such a look as none but Giovanni had ever seen upon her face. He put his arm about her waist and drew her to him, and kissed her dark cheek.
“I cannot bear to go away and leave you, even for a day,” he said, pressing her to his side.
“Why should you?” she murmured, looking up to him. “Why should he go, after all? This has been such a silly affair. I wonder if that woman thought that anything could ever come between you and me? That was what made me think she was really mad.”
“And an excellent reason,” he answered. “Anybody must be insane who dreams of parting us two. It seems as though a year ago I had not loved you at all.”
“I am so glad,” said Corona. “Do you remember, last summer, on the tower at Saracinesca, I told you that you did not know what love was?”
“It was true, Corona — I did not know. But I thought I did. I never imagined what the happiness of love was, nor how great it was, nor how it could enter into every thought.”
“Into every thought? Into your great thoughts too?”
“If any thoughts of mine are great, they are so because you are the mainspring of them,” he answered.
“Will it always be so?” she asked. “You will be a very great man some day, Giovanni; will you always feel that I am something to you?”
“Always — more than anything to me, more than all of me together.”
“I sometimes wonder,” said Corona. “I think I understand you better than I used to do. I like to think that you feel how I understand you when you tell me anything. Of course I am not clever like you, but I love you so much that just while you are talking I seem to understand everything. It is like a flash of light in a dark room.”
Giovanni kissed her again.
“What makes you think that I shall be great, Corona? Nobody ever thinks I am even clever. My father would laugh at you, and say it is quite enough greatness to be born a Saracinesca. What makes you think it?”
Corona stood up beside him and laid her delicate hand upon his thick, close-cut black hair, and gazed into his eyes.
“I know it,” she said. “I know it, because I love you so. A man like you must be great. There is something in you that nobody guesses but I, that will amaze people some day — I know it.”
“I wonder if you could tell me what it is? I wonder if it is really there at all?” said Giovanni.
“It is ambition,” said Corona, gravely. “You are the most ambitious man I ever knew, and nobody has found it out.”
“I believe it is true, Corona,” said Giovanni, turning away and leaning upon the chimneypiece, his head supported on one hand. “I believe you are right. I am ambitious: if I only had the brains that some men have I would do great things.”
“You are wrong, Giovanni. It is neither brains nor ambition nor strength that you lack — it is opportunity.”
“They say that a man who has anything in him creates opportunities for himself,” answered Giovanni, rather sadly. “I fear it is because I really have nothing in me that I can do nothing. It sometimes makes me very unhappy to think so. I suppose that is because my vanity is wounded.”
“Do not talk like that,” said Corona. “You have vanity, of course, but it is of the large kind, and I call it ambition. It is not only because I love you better than any man was ever loved before that I say that. It is that I know it instinctively I have heard you say that these are unsettled times. Wait; your opportunity will come, as it came often to your forefathers in other centuries.”
“I hardly think that their example is a good one,” replied Giovanni, with a smile.
“They generally did something remarkable in remarkable times,” said
Corona. “You will do the same. Your father, for instance, would not.”
“He is far more clever than I,” objected Giovanni.
“Clever! It passes for cleverness. He is quick, active, a good talker, a man with a ready wit and a sharp answer — kind-hearted when the fancy takes him, cruel when he is so disposed — but not a man of great convictions or of great actions. You are very different from him.”
“Will you draw my portrait, Corona?” asked Giovanni.
“As far as I know you. You are a man quick to think and slow to make a decision. You are not brilliant in conversation — you see I do not flatter you; I am just. You have the very remarkable quality of growing cold when others grow hot, and of keeping the full use of your faculties in any situation. When you have made a decision, you cannot be moved from it; but you are open to conviction in argument. You have a great repose of manner, which conceals a very restless brain. All your passions are very strong. You never forgive, never forget, and scarcely ever repent. Beneath all, you have an untamable ambition which has not yet found its proper field. Those are your qualities — and I love them all, and you more than them all.”
Corona finished her speech by throwing her arms round his neck, and breaking into a happy laugh as she buried her face upon his shoulder. No one who saw her in the world would have believed her capable of those sudden and violent demonstrations — she was thought so very cold.
When Giovanni reached home, he was informed that his father had left Rome an hour earlier by the train for Terni, leaving word that he had gone to Aquila.
CHAPTER XXIX.
IN THOSE DAYS the railroad did not extend beyond Terni in the direction of Aquila, and it was necessary to perform the journey of forty miles between those towns by diligence. It was late in the afternoon of the next day before the cumbrous coach rolled up to the door of the Locanda del Sole in Aquila, and Prince Saracinesca found himself at his destination. The red evening sun gilded the snow of the Gran Sasso d’Italia, the huge domed
mountain that towers above the city of Frederick. The city itself had long been in the shade, and the spring air was sharp and biting. Saracinesca deposited his slender luggage with the portly landlord, said he would return for supper in half an hour, and inquired the way to the church of San Bernardino da Siena. There was no difficulty in finding it, at the end of the Corso — the inevitable “Corso” of every Italian town. The old gentleman walked briskly along the broad, clean street, and reached the door of the church just as the sacristan was hoisting the heavy leathern curtain, preparatory to locking up for the night.
“Where can I find the Padre Curato?” inquired the Prince. The man looked at him but made no answer, and proceeded to close the doors with great care. He was an old man in a shabby cassock, with four days’ beard on his face, and he appeared to have taken snuff recently.
“Where is the Curator?” repeated the Prince, plucking him by the sleeve. But the man shook his head, and began turning the ponderous key in the lock. Two little ragged boys were playing a game upon the church steps, piling five chestnuts in a heap and then knocking them down with a small stone. One of them having upset the heap, desisted and came near the Prince.
“That one is deaf,” he said, pointing to the sacristan. Then running behind, him he stood on tiptoe and screamed in his ear— “Brutta bestia!”
The sacristan did not hear, but caught sight of the urchin and made a lunge at him. He missed him, however, and nearly fell over.
“What education! — che educazione!” cried the old man, angrily.
Meanwhile the little boy took refuge behind Saracinesca, and pulling his coat asked for a soldo. The sacristan calmly withdrew the key from the lock, and went away without vouchsafing a look to the Prince.
“He is deaf,” screamed the little boy, who was now joined by his companion, and both in great excitement danced round the fine gentleman.
“Give me a soldo,” they yelled together.
“Show me the house of the Padre Curato,” answered the Prince, “then I will give you each a soldo. Lesti! Quick!”
Whereupon both the boys began turning cart-wheels on their feet and hands with marvellous dexterity. At last they subsided into a natural position, and led the way to the curate’s house, not twenty yards from the church, in a narrow alley. The Prince pulled the bell by the long chain which hung beside the open street door, and gave the boys the promised coppers. They did not leave him, however, but stood by to see what would happen. An old woman looked out of an upper window, and after surveying the Prince with care, called down to him —
“What do you want?”
“Is the Padre Curato at home?”
“Of course he is at home,” screamed the old woman, “At this hour!” she added, contemptuously.
“Ebbene — can I see him?”
“What! is the door shut?” returned the hag.
“No.”
“Then why don’t you come up without asking?” The old woman’s head disappeared, and the window was shut with a clattering noise.
“She is a woman without education,” remarked one of the ragged boys, making a face towards the closed window.
The Prince entered the door and stumbled up the dark stairs, and after some further palaver obtained admittance to the curate’s lodging. The curate sat in a room which appeared to serve as dining-room, living-room, and study. A small table was spread with a clean cloth, upon which were arranged a plate, a loaf of bread, a battered spoon, a knife, and a small measure of thin-looking wine. A brass lamp with three wicks, one of which only was burning, shed a feeble light through the poor apartment. Against the wall stood a rough table with an inkstand and three or four mouldy books. Above this hung a little black cross bearing a brass Christ, and above this again a coloured print of San Bernardino of Siena. The walls were whitewashed, and perfectly clean, — as indeed was everything else in the room, — and there was a sweet smell of flowers from a huge pot of pinks which had been taken in for the night, and stood upon the stone sill within the closed window.
The curate was a tall old man, with a singularly gentle face and soft brown eyes. He wore a threadbare cassock, carefully brushed; and from beneath his three-cornered black cap his thin hair hung in a straight grey fringe. As the Prince entered the room, the old woman called over his shoulder to the priest an uncertain formula of introduction.
“Don Paolo, c’è uno — there is one.” Then she retired, grumbling audibly.
The priest removed his cap, and bowing politely, offered one of the two chairs to his visitor. With an apology, he replaced his cap upon his head, and seated himself opposite the Prince. There was much courteous simplicity in his manner.
“In what way can I serve you, Signore?” he asked.
“These papers,” answered the Prince, drawing the famous envelope from his breast-pocket, “are copies of certain documents in your keeping, relating to the supposed marriage of one Giovanni Saracinesca. With your very kind permission, I desire to see the originals.”
The old curate bowed, as though giving his assent, and looked steadily at his visitor for a moment before he answered.
“There is nothing simpler, my good sir. You will pardon me, however, if I venture to inquire your name, and to ask you for what purpose you desire to consult the documents?”
“I am Leone Saracinesca of Rome—”
The priest started uneasily.
“A relation of Giovanni Saracinesca?” he inquired. Then he added immediately, “Will you kindly excuse me for one moment?” and left the room abruptly. The Prince was considerably astonished, but he held his papers firmly in his hand, and did not move from his seat. The curate returned in a few seconds, bringing with him a little painted porcelain basket, much chipped and the worse for age, and which contained a collection of visiting-cards. There were not more than a score of them, turning brown with accumulated dust. The priest found one which was rather newer than the rest, and after carefully adjusting a pair of huge spectacles upon his nose, he went over to the lamp and examined it.
“‘Il Conte del Ferice,’” he read slowly. “Do you happen to know that gentleman, my good sir?” he inquired, turning to the Prince, and looking keenly at him over his glasses.
“Certainly,” answered Saracinesca, beginning to understand the situation.
“I know him very well.”
“Ah, that is good!” said the priest. “He was here two years ago, and had those same entries concerning Giovanni Saracinesca copied. Probably — certainly, indeed — the papers you have there are the very ones he took away with him. When he came to see me about it, he gave me this card.”
“I wonder he did,” answered Saracinesca.
“Indeed,” replied the curate, after a moment’s thought, “I remember that he came the next day — yes — and asked to have his card returned. But I could not find it for him. There was a hole in one of my pockets — it had slipped down. Carmela, my old servant, found it a day or two later in the lining of my cassock. I thought it strange that he should have asked for it.”
“It was very natural. He wished you to forget his existence.”
“He asked me many questions about Giovanni,” said the priest, “but I could not answer him at that time.”
“You could answer now?” inquired the Prince, eagerly.
“Excuse me, my good sir; what relation are you to Giovanni? You say you are from Rome?”
“Let us understand each other, Signor Curato,” said Saracinesca. “I see I had better explain the position. I am Leone Saracinesca, the prince of that name, and the head of the family.” The priest bowed respectfully at this intelligence. “My only son lives with me in Rome — he is now there — and his name is Giovanni Saracinesca. He is engaged to be married. When the engagement became known, an enemy of the family attempted to prove, by means of these papers, that he was married already to a certain Felice Baldi. Now I wish to know who this Giovanni Saracinesca is, where he is, and how he comes to have my son’s name. I wish a certi
ficate or some proof that he is not my son, — that he is alive, or that he is dead and buried.”
The old priest burst into a genial laugh, and rubbed his hands together in delight.
“My dear sir — your Excellency, I mean — I baptised Felice Baldi’s second baby a fortnight ago! There is nothing simpler—”
“I knew it!” cried the Prince, springing from his chair in great excitement; “I knew it! Where is that baby? Send and get the baby at once — the mother — the father — everybody!”
“Subito! At once — or come with me. I will show you the whole family together,” said the curate, in innocent delight. “Splendid children they are, too. Carmela, my cloak — sbrigati, be quick!”
“One moment,” objected Saracinesca, as though suddenly recollecting something. “One moment, Sign or Curato; who goes slowly goes safely. Where does this man come from, and how does he come by his name? I would like to know something about him before I see him.”
“True,” answered the priest, resuming his seat. “I had forgotten. Well, it is not a long story. Giovanni Saracinesca is from Naples. You know there was once a branch of your family in the Neapolitan kingdom — at least so Giovanni says, and he is an honest fellow. Their title was Marchese di San Giacinto; and if Giovanni liked to claim it, he has a right to the title still.”
“But those Saracinesca were extinct fifty years ago,” objected the
Prince, who knew his family history very well.
“Giovanni says they were not. They were believed to be. The last Marchese di San Giacinto fought under Napoleon. He lost all he possessed — lands, money, everything — by confiscation, when Ferdinand was restored in 1815. He was a rough man; he dropped his title, married a peasant’s only daughter, became a peasant himself, and died obscurely in a village near Salerno. He left a son who worked on the farm and inherited it from his mother, married a woman of the village of some education, and died of the cholera, leaving his son, the present Giovanni Saracinesca. This Giovanni received a better education than his father had before him, improved his farm, began to sell wine and oil for exportation, travelled as far as Aquila, and met Felice Baldi, the daughter of a man of some wealth, who has since established an inn here. Giovanni loved her. I married them. He went back to Naples, sold his farm for a good price last year, and returned to Aquila. He manages his father-in-law’s inn, which is the second largest here, and drives a good business, having put his own capital into the enterprise. They have two children, the second one of which was born three weeks ago, and they are perfectly happy.”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 229
