Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Her large eyes flashed with the furious determination to make him do what she desired. His hands had fallen from his face, and he was looking at her almost quietly, not yielding so much as she thought, but at least listening gravely instead of telling her that she asked the impossible.

  The door opened discreetly, and a servant appeared upon the threshold.

  “The Signor Duca della Spina begs your Excellency to receive him for a moment, if it is not too late.”

  “Certainly,” answered the countess, instantly, and with perfect self-control.

  The servant closed the door and went back to deliver the short message. Matilde threw the folds of her black gown away from her feet, so that she might rise to meet the visitor, who was an old man and a person of importance. She looked keenly at Bosio.

  “Do not go away,” she said quickly, in a low voice. “Your forehead is wet — dry it — compose yourself — be natural!”

  Before Bosio had returned his handkerchief to his pocket the door opened again, and a tall old man entered with a stooping gait. He had weak and inquiring eyes that looked about the room as he walked. His head was bald, and shone like a skull in the yellow reflexion from the damask hangings. His gait was not firm, and as he passed Bosio in order to reach the countess, he had an uncertain movement of head and hand, as though he were inclined to speak to him first. Matilde had risen, however, and had moved a step forward to meet the visitor, speaking at the same time, as though to direct him to herself, with the somewhat maternal air which even young women sometimes assume in greeting old men.

  The Duca della Spina smiled rather feebly as he took the outstretched hand, and slowly sat down upon the sofa beside Matilde.

  “I feared it might be too late,” he began, and his watery blue eyes sought her face anxiously. “But my son insisted that I should come this evening, when he found that I had not been able to see you this afternoon.”

  “How is he?” asked the countess, suddenly assuming an expression of great concern.

  “Eh! How he is! He is — so,” answered the Duca, with a gesture which meant uncertainty. “Signora Contessa,” he added, “he is not well at all. It is natural with the young. It is passion. What else can I tell you? He is impatient. His nerves shake him, and he does not eat. Morning and evening he asks, ‘Father, what will it be?’ So, to content him, I have come to disturb you.”

  “Not in the least, dear Duca!”

  The door opened again, and Gregorio Macomer entered the room, having been informed of the presence of a visitor. The Duca looked up, and his head shook involuntarily, as he at once began the slow process of getting upon his legs. But Macomer was already pressing him into his seat again, holding the old hand in both of his with an appearance of much cordiality.

  “I hope that Gianluca is no worse?” he said, with an interrogation that expressed friendly interest.

  “Better he is not,” answered the Duca, sadly. “What would you? It is passion. That is why I have come at this hour, and I have made my excuses to the Signora Contessa for disturbing her.”

  “Excuses?” cried Gregorio, promptly. “We are delighted to see you, dear friend!”

  But as he spoke he turned a look of inquiry upon his wife, and she answered by a scarcely perceptible sign of negation.

  They had been taken by surprise, for they had not expected the Duca’s visit. Not heeding them, his heart full of his son, the old man continued to speak, in short, almost tremulous sentences.

  “It is certain that Gianluca is very ill,” he said. “Taquisara has been with him to-day, and Pietro Ghisleri — but Taquisara is his best friend. You know Taquisara, do you not?”

  “A Sicilian?” asked the countess, encouraging the old man to go on.

  “Yes,” said Macomer, answering for the Duca, for he was proud of his genealogical knowledge, “The only son of the old Baron of Guardia. But every one calls him Taquisara, though his father is dead. There is a story which says that they are descended from Tancred.”

  “It may be,” said the old Duca. “There are so many legends — but he is Gianluca’s best friend, and he comes to see him every day. The boy is ill — very ill.” He shook his head, and bent it almost to his breast. “He wastes away, and I do not know what to do for him.”

  The Count and Countess Macomer also shook their heads gravely, but said nothing. Bosio, seated at a little distance, looked on, his brain still disturbed by what had gone before, and wondering at Matilde’s power of seeming at her ease in such a desperate situation; wondering, too, at his brother’s hard, cold face — the mask that had so well hidden the passion of the gambler, and perhaps many other passions as well, of which even Bosio knew nothing, nor cared to know anything, having secrets of his own to keep.

  All at once, and without warning, after the short pause, the old man broke out in tremulous entreaty.

  “Oh! my friends!” he cried. “Do not say no! I shall not have the courage to take such a message to my poor son! Eh, they say that nowadays old-fashioned love is not to be found. But look at Gianluca — he consumes himself, he wastes away before my eyes, and one day follows another, and I can do nothing. You do not believe? Go and see! One day follows another — he is always in his room, consuming himself for love! He is pale — paler than a sheet. He does not eat, he does not drink, he does not smoke — he, who smoked thirty cigarettes a day! As for the theatre, or going out, he will not hear of it. He says, ‘I will not see her, for if she will not have me, it is better to die quickly.’ A father’s heart, dear Macomer — think of what I suffer, and have compassion! He is my only one — such a beautiful boy, and so young—”

  “We are sorry,” said Matilde, with firm-voiced sympathy that was already a refusal.

  “You will not!” cried the old man, shakily, in his distress. “Say you will not — but not that you are sorry! And Heaven knows it is not for Donna Veronica’s money! The contract shall be as you please — we do not need—”

  “Who has spoken of money?” The countess’s tone expressed grave indifference to such a trifle. “Dear Duca, do not be distressed. We cannot help it. We cannot dictate to Providence. Had circumstances been different, what better match could we have found for her than your dear son? But I told you that the girl’s inclinations must be consulted, and that we had little hope of satisfying you. And now—” She looked earnestly at her husband, as though to secure his consent beforehand— “and now it has turned out as we foresaw. Courage, dear Duca! Your son is young. He has seen Veronica but a few times, and they have certainly never been alone together — what can it really be, such love-passion as that? Veronica has made her choice.”

  Not a muscle of Macomer’s hard face moved. He knew that if his wife had a surprise for him on the spur of the moment, it must be for their joint interest. But the Duca della Spina’s jaw dropped, and his hands shook.

  “Yes,” — continued the countess, calmly, “Veronica has made her choice.

  It is hard for us to tell you, knowing how you feel for your son.

  Veronica is engaged to be married to Bosio, here.”

  Bosio started violently, for he was a very nervously organized man; but his brother’s face did not change, though the small eyes suddenly flashed into sight brightly from beneath the drooping, concealing lids. A dead silence followed, which lasted several seconds. Matilde had laid her hand upon the Duca’s arm, as though to give him courage, and she felt it tremble under her touch, for he loved his son very dearly.

  “You might have written me this news,” he said at last, in a low voice and with a dazed look. “You might — you might have spared me — oh, my son! My poor Gianluca!” His voice broke, and the weak, sincere tears broke from the watery eyes and trickled down the wasted cheeks piteously, while his head turned slowly from side to side in sorrowfully hopeless regret.

  “It has only been decided this evening,” said Matilde. “We should have written to you in the morning.”

  “Of course,” echoed her husband, gravely.
“It was our duty to let you know at once.”

  The Duca della Spina rose painfully to his feet. He seemed quite unconscious of the tears he had shed, and too much shaken to take leave with any formality. Bosio stood quite still, when he had risen too, and his face was white. The old man passed him without a word, going to the door.

  “My poor son! my poor Gianluca!” he repeated to himself, as Gregorio

  Macomer accompanied him.

  Matilde and Bosio were left alone for a moment, but they knew that the count would return at once. They stood still, looking each at the other, with very different expressions.

  Bosio felt that, in his place, a strong, brave man would have done something, would have stood up to deny the engagement, perhaps, or would have left the room rather than accept the situation in submissive silence, protesting in some way, though only Matilde should have understood the protest. She, on her side, slowly nodded her approval of his conduct, and in her dark eyes there was a yellow reflexion from the predominating colour of the room; there was triumph and satisfaction, and there was the threat of the woman who dominates the man and is sure of doing with him as she pleases. Yet she was not so sure of herself as she seemed, and wished to seem, for she dreaded Bosio’s sense of honour, which was not wholly dead.

  “Do not deny it to Gregorio,” she said, in a low tone, when she heard her husband’s footstep returning through the room beyond.

  Old Macomer came back and closed the door behind him.

  “What is this?” he asked, at once; but though his voice was hard, it was trembling with the anticipation of a great victory. “Has Veronica consented?”

  “No one has spoken to her,” answered Bosio, before Matilde could speak.

  “As though that mattered!” cried the countess, with contempt. “There is time for that!”

  Gregorio’s eyelids contracted with an expression of cunning.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed thoughtfully, “I understand.” He began to walk up and down in the narrow space between the furniture of the small sitting-room, bending his head between his high shoulders. “I see,” he repeated. “I understand. But if Veronica refuses? You have been rash, Matilde.”

  “Veronica loves him,” answered the countess. “And of course you know that he loves her,” she added, and her smooth lips smiled. “You need not deny it before us, Bosio. You have loved her ever since she came from the convent—”

  “I?” Bosio’s pale face reddened with anger.

  “See how he blushes!” laughed Matilde. “As for Veronica, she will talk to no one else. They are made for each other. She will die if she does not marry Bosio soon.”

  The yellow reflexion danced in her eyes, as she fastened them upon her brother-in-law’s face, and he shuddered, remembering what she had said before the Duca had come.

  “If that is the case,” said Macomer, “the sooner they are married, the better. Save her life, Bosio! Save her life! Do not let her die of love for you!”

  He, who rarely laughed, laughed now, and the sound was horrible in his brother’s ears. Then he suddenly turned away and left the room, still drily chuckling to himself. It was quite unconscious and an effect of his overwrought and long-controlled nerves.

  Matilde and Bosio were alone again, and they knew that he would not come back. Bosio sank into his chair again, and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “The infamy of it!” he groaned, in the bitterness of his weak misery.

  Matilde stood beside him, and gently stroked his hair where it was streaked with grey. He moved impatiently, as though to shake off her strong hand.

  “No,” she said, and her voice grew as soft as velvet. “It is to save me — to save us all.”

  He shook her off, and rose to his feet with spasmodic energy.

  “I cannot — I will not — never!” he cried, walking away from her with irregular steps.

  “But it will be so much better — for Veronica, too,” she said softly, for she knew how to frighten him.

  He turned with startled eyes. Then, with the impulse of a man escaping from something which he is not strong enough to face, he reached the door in two quick strides, and went out without looking back.

  Matilde watched the door, as it closed, and stood still a few seconds before she left the room. Her eyes wandered to the clock, and she saw that it was nearly midnight.

  The look of triumph faded slowly from her face, and the brows contracted in a look which no one could easily have understood, except Bosio himself, perhaps, had he still been there. The smooth lips were drawn in and tightly compressed; and she held her breath, while her right hand strained upon her left with all her might. Then the lips parted with a sort of little snap as she drew breath again; and she turned her head suddenly, and looked behind her, growing a trifle paler, as though she expected to see something startling.

  She tried to smile, and roused herself, rang the bell for the servant to put out the lights, and left the room. It was long before she slept that night. In the next room she could hear Gregorio’s slow and regular footsteps, as he walked up and down without ceasing. In his own room upstairs, Bosio Macomer sat staring at the ashes of the burnt-out fire on his hearth. Only Veronica was asleep, dreamless, young, and restful.

  CHAPTER III.

  NAPLES, MORE THAN any other city of Italy, is full of the violent contrasts which belong to great old cities everywhere, and the absence of which makes new cities dull, be they as well built, as well situated, as civilized and as beautiful as they can be made by art handling nature for the greater glory of modern humanity.

  In Naples, there is a fashionable new quarter, swept, watered, and garnished with plants and trees, but many of the great palaces stand in old and narrow streets, rising up, grim and solemn and proud, out of the recklessly vital life of one of the worst populaces in the world. Fifty paces away, again, is a wide thoroughfare, perhaps, raging and roaring with traffic from the port. A hundred yards in another direction, and there is a clean, deserted court, into which the midday sun pours itself as into a reservoir of light, — a court with a quiet church and simple old houses, through the doors of which pale-faced ecclesiastics silently come and go.

  Round the next corner leads a dark lane, between hugely high buildings that press the air and keep out the sun and all sky but a thin ribband of blue. And the air is heavy with all vile things, from the ill-washed linen that hangs, slowly drying, from the upper windows, thrust out into the draught with sticks, to the rotting garbage in the gutters below. The low-arched doors open directly upon the slimy, black pavement; and in the deep shadows within sit strange figures with doughy faces and glassy eyes, breathing in the stench of the nauseous, steamy air, — working a little, perhaps, at some one of the shadowy, back-street trades of a great city, but poisoned to death from birth by the air they live in, diseased of the diseased, from very childhood, and prolific as disease itself, multiplying to fatten death at the next pestilence.

  And then, again, a vast square, gaudy with coloured handbills, noisy with wheels and the everlasting Neapolitan chattering of a thick-lipped, loud, degenerate dialect. There the little one-horse cabs tear hither and thither, drivers lashing their wretched beasts, wheels whirling, arms gesticulating, bad eyes flashing and leering, thick lips chattering everlastingly: and the tram-cars roll along, crowded till the people cling to one another on the steps; and the small boys dodge in and out between the cars and the carriages and the horses and the foot-passengers, some screaming out papers for sale, some looking for pockets to pick, some hunting for stumps of cigars in the dust, — dirty, ragged, joyous, foul-mouthed, God-forsaken little boys; and then through the midst of all, as a black swan swimming stately through muddy waters, comes a splendid, princely equipage, all in mourning, from the black horses to the heavy veil just raised across a young widow’s white face — and so, from contrast to contrast, through the dense city, and down to the teeming port, and out at last to the magic southern sea, where
the clean life of the white-sailed ships passes silently, and scarce leaves a momentary wake to mar the pure waters of the tideless bay.

  But there is life everywhere, — reckless, excessive, and the desire for life as a supreme good, worth living for its own sake — even if it is to be food for the next year’s pestilence — a life that can support itself on anything, and thrive in its own fashion in the flashing sun, and the dust and the dirt, and multiply beyond measure and mysteriously fast. Only here and there in the swarm something permanent and fossilized stands solid and unchanging, and divides the flight of the myriad ephemeral lives — a monument, a church, a fortress, a palace: or, perhaps, the figure of some man of sterner race, with grave eyes and strong, thin lips, and manly carriage, looms in the crowd, and by its mere presence seems to send all the rest down a step to a lower level of humanity.

  Such a man was Taquisara, the Sicilian, of whom the old Duca della Spina had spoken. He had no permanent abode in Naples, but lived in a hotel down by the public gardens, beyond Santa Lucia; and on the day after the Duca had been to see the Countess Macomer, he strolled up as usual, by short cuts and narrow streets, to see his friend Gianluca in the Spina palace, in the upper part of the city. Many people looked at him, as he went by, and some knew him for a Sicilian, by his face, while some took him for a foreigner, and pressed upon him to beg, or made faces and vile gestures at him, as soon as he could not see, after the manner of the lower Neapolitans. But he passed calmly on, supremely indifferent, his handsome, manly face turning neither to the right nor the left.

  He might have stood for the portrait of a Saracen warrior of the eleventh century, with his high, dark features and keen eyes, his even lips, square jaw, and smooth, tough throat. He had, too, something of the Arabian dignity in his bearing, and he walked with long, well-balanced steps, swiftly, but without haste, as the Arab walks barefooted in the sand, not even suspecting that weariness can ever come upon him; erect, proud, without self-consciousness, elastic; collected and ever ready, in his easy and effortless movement, for sudden and violent action. He was not pale, as dark Italians are, but his skin had the colour and look of fresh light bronze, just chiselled, and able to reflect the sun, while having a light of its own from the strong blood beneath. That was the reason why the Neapolitans who did not chance to have seen Sicilians often, took him for a foreigner and got into his way, holding out their hands to beg, and making ape-like grimaces at him behind his back. But those who knew the type of his race and recognized it, did nothing of that sort. On the contrary, they were careful not to molest him.