Tebaldo had a thin face, with a square, narrow forehead, and heavy jaws that came to an overpointed chin. His upper lip was very short, and his moustache was unusually small, black and glossy, and turned up at the ends in aggressive points. His upper teeth were sharp, long, and regular, and he showed them when he smiled. The smile did not extend upwards above the nostrils, and there was something almost sinister in the still black eyes. In the front view the lower part of the face was triangular, and the low forehead made the upper portion seem square. He was a man of bilious constitution, of an even, yellow-brown complexion, rather lank and bony in frame, but of a type which is often very enduring. Such men sometimes have violent and uncontrolled tempers, combined with great cunning, quickness of intelligence, and an extraordinary power of taking advantage of circumstances.
Tebaldo smiled at Orsino’s remark, not at all acknowledging that it might be intended as a rebuke.
‘It is hard to believe that she can be your mother,’ he said quietly, and with such frankness as completely disarmed resentment.
But Orsino in his thoughts contrasted Tebaldo’s present tone with the sound of his voice when speaking to the Princess an instant earlier, and he forthwith disliked the man, and believed him to be false and double. Corona either had not heard, or pretended not to hear, and talked indifferently with San Giacinto, whose vast, lean frame seemed to fill two places at the table, while his energetic gray head towered high above everyone else. Orsino turned to Vittoria again.
‘Should you be pleased if someone told you that you were the most beautiful young lady in Italy?’ he enquired.
Vittoria looked at him wonderingly.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘It would not be true. How should I be pleased?’
‘But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it were true. I am imagining a case. Should you be pleased?’
‘I do not know — I think—’ She hesitated and paused.
‘I am very curious to know what you think,’ said Orsino, pressing her for an answer.
‘I think it would depend upon whether I liked the person who told me so.’ Again the blood rose softly in her face.
‘That is exactly what I should think,’ answered Orsino gravely. ‘Were you sorry to leave the convent?’
‘Yes, I cried a great deal. It was my home for so many years, and I was so happy there.’
The girl’s eyes grew dreamy as she looked absently across the table at Guendalina Pietrasanta. She was evidently lost in her recollections of her life with the nuns. Orsino was almost amused at his own failure.
‘Should you have liked to stay and be a nun yourself?’ he inquired, with a smile.
‘Yes, indeed! At least — when I came away I wished to stay.’
‘But you have changed your mind since? You find the world pleasanter than you expected? It is not a bad place, I daresay.’
‘They told me that it was very bad,’ said Vittoria seriously. ‘Of course they must know, but I do not quite understand what they mean. Can you tell me something about it, and why it is bad, and what all the wickedness is?’
Orsino looked at her quietly for a moment, realising very clearly the whiteness of her life’s unwritten page.
‘Your nuns may be right,’ he said at last. ‘I am not in love with the world, but I do not believe that it is so very wicked. At least, there are many good people in it, and one can find them if one chooses. No doubt, we are all miserable sinners in a theological sense, but I am not a theologian. I have a brother who is a priest, and you will see him after dinner; but though he is a very good man, he does not give one the impression of believing that the world is absolutely bad. It is true that he is rather a dilettante priest.’
Vittoria was evidently shocked, for her face grew extraordinarily grave and a shade paler. She looked at Orsino in a startled way and then at her plate.
‘What is the matter?’ he asked quickly. ‘Have I shocked you?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, almost in a whisper and still looking down. ‘That is,’ she added with hesitation, ‘perhaps I did not quite understand you.’
‘No, you did not, if you are shocked. I merely meant that although my brother is a very good man, and a very religious man, and believes that he has a vocation, and does his best to be a good priest, he has other interests in life for which I am sure that he cares more, though he may not know it.’
‘What other interests?’ asked Vittoria, rather timidly.
‘Well, only one, perhaps — music. He is a musician first, and a priest afterwards.’
The young girl’s face brightened instantly. She had expected something very terrible, perhaps, though quite undefined.
‘He says mass in the morning,’ continued Orsino, ‘and it may take him an hour or so to read his breviary conscientiously in the afternoon. The rest of his time he spends over the piano.’
‘But it is not profane music?’ asked Vittoria, growing anxious again.
‘Oh no!’ Orsino smiled. ‘He composes masses and symphonies and motetts.’
‘Well, there is no harm in that,’ said Vittoria, indifferently, being again reassured.
‘Certainly not. I wish I had the talent and the interest in it to do it myself. I believe that the chief real wickedness is doing nothing at all.’
‘Sloth is one of the capital sins,’ observed Vittoria, who knew the names of all seven.
‘It is also the most tiresome sin imaginable, especially when one is condemned to it for life, as I am.’
The young girl looked at him anxiously, and there was a little pause.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘No one is obliged to be idle.’
‘Will you find me an occupation?’ Orsino asked in his turn, and with some bitterness. ‘I shall be gratified.’
‘Is not doing good an occupation? I am sure that there must be plenty of opportunities for that.’
She felt more sure of herself when upon such ground. Orsino did not smile.
‘Yes. It might take up a man’s whole life, but it is not a career—’
‘It was the career of many of the saints!’ interrupted Vittoria, cheerfully, for she was beginning to feel at her ease at last. ‘Saint Francis of Assisi — Saint Clare — Saint—’
‘Pray for us!’ exclaimed Orsino, as though he were responding in a litany.
Vittoria’s face fell instantly, and he regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them. She was like a sensitive plant, he thought; and yet she had none of the appearance of an over-impressionable, nervous girl. It was doubtless her education.
‘I have shocked you again,’ he said gravely. ‘I am sorry, but I am afraid that you will often be shocked, at first. Yes; I have no doubt that to the saints doing good was a career, and that a saint might make a career of it nowadays. But you see I am not one. What I should like would be to have a profession of some sort, and to work at it with all my might.’
‘What a strange idea!’ Vittoria looked at him in surprise; for though her three brothers had been almost beggars for ten years, it had never struck them that they could possibly have a profession. ‘But you are a noble,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘You will be the Prince Saracinesca some day.’
Orsino laughed.
‘We do not think so much of those things as we did once,’ he answered. ‘I would be a doctor, if I could, or a lawyer, or a man of business. I do not think that I should like to be a shopkeeper, though it is only a matter of prejudice—’
‘I should think not!’ cried Vittoria, startled again.
‘It would be much more interesting than the life I lead. Almost any life would be, for that matter. Of course, if I had my choice—’ He stopped.
Vittoria waited, her eyes fixed earnestly on his face, but she said nothing. Somehow she was suddenly anxious to know what his choice would be. He felt that she was watching him, and turned towards her. Their eyes met in silence, and he smiled, but her face remained grave. He was thinking that this must certainly be one of the most absurd co
nversations in which he had ever been engaged, but that somehow it did not appear absurd to himself, and he wondered why.
‘If I had my choice—’ He paused again. ‘I would be a leader,’ he added suddenly.
He was still young, and there was ambition in him. His dark eyes flashed like his mother’s, a warmer colour rose for one instant under his olive skin; the fine, firm mouth set itself.
‘I think you could be,’ said Vittoria, almost under her breath and half unconsciously.
Then, all at once, she blushed scarlet, and turned her face away to hide her colour. If there is one thing in woman which more than any other attracts a misunderstood man, it is the conviction that she believes him capable of great deeds; and if there is one thing beyond others which leads a woman to love a man, it is her own certainty that he is really superior to those around him, and really needs woman’s sympathy. Youth, beauty, charm, eloquence, are all second to these in their power to implant genuine love, or to maintain it, if they continue to exist as conditions.
It mattered little to Vittoria that she had as yet no means whatever of judging whether Orsino Saracinesca had any such extraordinary powers as might some day make him a leader among men. She had been hardly conscious of the strong impression she had received, and which had made her speak, and she was far too young and simple to argue with herself about it. And he, on his part, with a good deal of experience behind him and the memory of one older woman’s absolute devotion and sacrifice, felt a keen and unexpected pleasure, quite different from anything he remembered to have felt before now. Nor did he reason about it at first, for he was not a great reasoner and his pleasures in life were really very few.
A moment or two after Vittoria had spoken, and when she had already turned away her face, Orsino shook his head almost imperceptibly, as though trying to throw something off which annoyed him. It was near the end of dinner before the two spoke to each other again, though Vittoria half turned towards him twice in the mean time, as though expecting him to speak, and then, disappointed, looked at her plate again.
‘Are you going to stay in Rome, or shall you go back to Sicily?’ he asked suddenly, not looking at her, but at the small white hand that touched the edge of the table beside him.
Vittoria started perceptibly at the sound of his voice, as though she had been in a reverie, and her hand disappeared at the same instant. Orsino found himself staring at the tablecloth, at the spot where it had lain.
‘I think — I hope we shall stay in Rome,’ she answered. ‘My brother has a great deal of business here.’
‘Yes. I know. He sees my cousin San Giacinto about it almost every day.’
‘Yes.’
Her face grew thoughtful again, but not dreamily so as before, and she seemed to hesitate, as though she had more to say.
‘What is it?’ asked Orsino, encouraging her to go on.
‘Perhaps I ought not to tell you. The Marchese wishes to buy Camaldoli of us.’
‘What is Camaldoli?’
‘It is the old country house where my mother and my brothers lived so long, while I was in the convent, after my father died. There is a little land. It was all we had until now.’
‘Shall you be glad if it is sold, or sorry?’ asked Orsino, thoughtfully, and watching her face.
‘I shall be glad, I suppose,’ she answered. ‘It would have to be divided among us, they say. And it is half in ruins, and the land is worth nothing, and there are always brigands.’
Orsino laughed.
‘Yes. I should think you might be very glad to get rid of it. There is no difficulty about it, is there?’
‘Only — I have another brother. He likes it and has remained there. His name is Ferdinando. No one knows why he is so fond of the place. They need his consent, in order to sell it, and he will not agree.’
‘I understand. What sort of a man is your brother Ferdinando?’
‘I have not seen him for ten years. They are afraid of — I mean, he is afraid of nothing.’
There was something odd, Orsino thought, about the way the young girl shut her lips when she checked herself in the middle of the sentence, but he had no idea what she had been about to say. Just then Corona nodded slightly to the aged Prince at the other end of the table, and dinner was over.
‘I should think it would be necessary for San Giacinto to see this other brother of yours,’ observed Orsino, finishing the conversation as he rose and stood ready to take Vittoria out.
The little ungloved hand lay like a white butterfly on his black sleeve, and she had to raise her arm a little to take his, though she was not short. Just before them went San Giacinto, darkening the way like a figure of fate. Vittoria looked up at him, almost awe-struck at his mere size.
‘How tall he is!’ she exclaimed in a very low voice. ‘How very tall he is!’ she said again.
‘We are used to him,’ answered Orsino, with a short laugh. ‘But he has a big heart, though he looks so grim.’
Half an hour later, when the men were smoking in a room by themselves, San Giacinto came and sat down by Orsino in the remote corner where the latter had established himself, with a cigarette. The giant, as ever of old, had a villainous-looking black cigar between his teeth.
‘Do you want something to do?’ he asked bluntly.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you care to live in Sicily for a time?’
‘Anywhere — Japan, if you like.’
‘You are easily pleased. That means that you are not in love just at present, I suppose.’
San Giacinto looked hard at his young cousin for some time, in silence. Orsino met his glance quietly, but with some curiosity.
‘Do you ever go to see the Countess Del Ferice?’ asked the big man at last.
Orsino straightened himself in his chair and frowned a little, and then looked away as he answered by a cross-question, knocking the ash off his cigarette upon a little rock crystal dish at his elbow.
‘Why do you ask me that?’ he inquired rather sternly.
‘Because you were very much attracted by her once, and I wished to know whether you had kept up the acquaintance since her marriage.’
‘I have kept up the acquaintance — and no more,’ answered Orsino, meeting his cousin’s eyes again. ‘I go to see the Countess from time to time. I believe we are on very good terms.’
‘Will you go to Sicily with me if I need you, and stay there, and get an estate in order for me?’
‘With pleasure. When?’
‘I do not know yet. It may be in a week, or it may be in a month. It will be hot there, and you will have troublesome things to do.’
‘So much the better.’
‘There are brigands in the neighbourhood just now.’
‘That will be very amusing. I never saw one.’
‘You may tell Ippolito if you like, but please do not mention it to anyone else until we are ready to go. You know that your mother will be anxious about you, and your father is a conservative — and your grandfather is a firebrand, if he dislikes an idea. One would think that at his age his temper should have subsided.’
‘Not in the least!’ Orsino smiled, for he loved the old man, and was proud of his great age.
‘But you may tell Ippolito if you like, and if you warn him to be discreet. Ippolito would let himself be torn in pieces rather than betray a secret. He is by far the most discreet of you all.’
‘Yes. You are right, as usual. You have a good eye for a good man. What do you think of all these Pagliuca people, or Corleone, or d’Oriani — or whatever they call themselves?’ Orsino looked keenly at his cousin as he asked the question.
‘Did you ever meet Corleone? I mean the one who married Norba’s daughter, — the uncle of these boys.’
‘I met him once. From all accounts, he must have been a particularly disreputable personage.’
‘He was worse than that, I think. I never blamed his wife. Well — these boys are his nephews. I do not see that any comment is necessary
.’ San Giacinto smiled thoughtfully.
‘This young girl is also his niece,’ observed Orsino rather sharply.
‘Who knows what Tebaldo Pagliuca might have been if he had spent ten years amongst devout old women in a convent?’ The big man’s smile developed into an incredulous laugh, in which Orsino joined.
‘There has certainly been a difference of education,’ he admitted. ‘I like her.’
‘You would confer a great benefit upon a distressed family, by falling in love with her,’ said San Giacinto. ‘That worthy mother of hers was watching you two behind Pietrasanta’s head, during dinner.’
‘Another good reason for going to Sicily,’ answered Orsino. ‘The young lady is communicative. She told me, this evening, that you were trying to buy some place of theirs, — I forget the name, — and that one of her brothers objects.’
‘That is exactly the place I want you to manage. The name is Camaldoli.’
‘Then there is no secret about it,’ observed Orsino. ‘If she has told me, she may tell the next man she meets.’
‘Certainly. And mysteries are useless, as a rule. I do not wish to make any with you, at all events. Here are the facts. I am going to build a light railway connecting all those places; and I am anxious to get the land into my possession, without much talk. Do you understand? This place of the Corleone is directly in my line, and is one of the most important, because it is at a point through which I must pass, to make the railway at all, short of an expensive tunnel. Your management will simply consist in keeping things in order until the railway makes the land valuable. Then I shall sell it, of course.’
‘I see. Very well. Could you not give my old architect something to do? Andrea Contini is his name. The houses we built for Del Ferice have all turned out well, you know.’ Orsino laughed rather bitterly.
‘Remind me of him at the proper time,’ said San Giacinto. ‘Tell him to learn something about building small railway stations. There will be between fifteen and twenty, altogether.’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 879
