Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘I will. But — do you expect that a railway in Sicily will ever pay you?’

  ‘No. I am not an idiot.’

  ‘Then why do you build one, if that is not an indiscreet question?’

  ‘The rise in the value of all the land I buy will make it worth while, several times over. It is quite simple.’

  ‘It must take an enormous capital,’ said Orsino, thoughtfully.

  ‘It needs a large sum of ready money. But the lands are generally mortgaged for long periods, and almost to two-thirds of their selling value. The holders of the mortgages do not care who owns the land. So I pay about one-third in cash.’

  ‘What becomes of the value of a whole country, when all the land is mortgaged for two-thirds of what it is worth?’ asked Orsino, carelessly, and half laughing.

  But San Giacinto did not laugh.

  ‘I have thought about that,’ he answered gravely. ‘When the yield of the land is not enough to pay the interest on the mortgages, the taxes to the government, and some income to the owners, they starve outright, or emigrate. There is a good deal of starvation nowadays, and a good deal of emigration in search of bread.’

  ‘And yet they say that the value of land is increasing almost all over the country,’ objected Orsino. ‘You count on it yourself.’

  ‘The value rises wherever railways and roads are built.’

  ‘And what pays for the railways?’

  ‘The taxes.’

  ‘And the people pay the taxes.’

  ‘Exactly. And the taxes are enormous. The people in places remote from the projected railway are ruined by them, but the people who own land where the railways pass are indirectly very much enriched by the result. Sometimes a private individual like myself builds a light road. I think that is a source of wealth, in the end, to everyone. But the building of the government roads, like the one down the west coast of Calabria, seems to destroy the balance of wealth and increase emigration. It is a necessary evil.’

  ‘There are a good many necessary evils in our country,’ said Orsino. ‘There are too many.’

  ‘Per aspera ad astra. I never knew much Latin, but I believe that means something. There are also unnecessary evils, such as brigandage in Sicily, for instance. You can amuse yourself by fighting that one, if you please; though I have no doubt that the brigands will often travel by my railway — and they will certainly go in the first class.’

  The big man laughed and rose, leaving Orsino to meditate upon the prospect of occupation which was opened to him.

  CHAPTER IV

  ORSINO REMAINED IN his corner a few minutes, after San Giacinto had left him, and then rose to go into the drawing-room. As he went he passed the other men, who were seated and standing, all near together and not far from the empty fireplace, listening to Tebaldo Pagliuca, who was talking about Sicily with a very strong Sicilian accent. Orsino paused a moment to hear what he was saying. He was telling the story of a frightful murder committed in the outskirts of Palermo not many weeks earlier, and about which there had been much talk. But Tebaldo was on his own ground and knew much more about it than had appeared in the newspapers. His voice was not unpleasant. It was smooth, though his words were broken here and there by gutturals which he had certainly not learned on his own side of the island. There was a sort of reserve in the tones which contrasted with the vividness of the language. Orsino watched him and looked at him more keenly than he had done as yet. He was struck by the stillness of the deep eyes, which were slightly bloodshot, like those of some Arabs, and at the same time by the mobility and changing expression of the lower part of the face. Tebaldo made gestures, too, which had a singular directness. Yet the whole impression given was that he was a good actor rather than a man of continued, honest action, and that he could have performed any other part as well. Near him stood his brother Francesco. There was doubtless a family resemblance between the two, but the difference of constitution was apparent to the most unpractised eye. The younger man was stouter, more sanguine, less nervous. The red blood glowed with strong health under his brown skin, his lips were scarlet and full, his dark moustache was soft and silky like his short, smooth hair, and his eyes were soft, too, and moistly bright, very long, with heavy drooping lids that were whiter than the skin of the rest of the face. Francesco was no more like his sister than was Tebaldo.

  Orsino found himself by his father as he paused in passing, and he suddenly realised how immeasurably nearer he was to this strong, iron-gray, middle-sized, silent man beside him, than to any other one of all the men in the room, including his own brothers. Sant’ Ilario had perhaps never understood his eldest son; or perhaps there was between them the insurmountable barrier of his own solid happiness. For it is sorrow that draws men together. Happiness needs no sympathy; happiness is not easily disturbed; happiness that is solidly founded is itself a most negative source of the most all-pervading virtue, without the least charity for unhappiness’ sins; happiness suffices to itself; happiness is a lantern to its own feet; it is all things to one man and nothing to all the rest; it is an impenetrable wall between him who has it and mankind. And Sant’ Ilario had been happy for nearly thirty years. In appearance, as was to be anticipated, he had turned out to be like his father, as the latter had been at the same age. In temper, he was different, as the conditions of his life had been of another sort. The ancient head of the house had lost his Spanish wife when very young, and had lived many years alone with his only son. Giovanni had met with no such misfortune. His wife was alive and still beautiful at an age when many women have forgotten the taste of flattery; and his four sons were all grown men, straight and tall, so that he looked up to their faces when they stood beside him. Strong, peaceable, honest, rather hard-faced young men, they were, excepting Ippolito, the second of them, who had talent and a lovable disposition in place of strength and hardness of character.

  They were fond of their father, no doubt, and there was great solidarity in the family. But what they felt for Sant’ Ilario was perhaps more like an allegiance than an affection, and they looked to him as the principal person of importance in the family, because their grandfather was such a very old man. They were accustomed to take it for granted that he was infallible when he expressed himself definitely in a family matter, whereas they had no very high opinion of his judgment in topics and questions of the day; for they had received a modern education, and were to some extent imbued with those modern prejudices compared with which the views of our fathers hardly deserved the name of a passing caprice.

  Orsino thought that there was something at once cunning and ferocious about Tebaldo’s way of telling the story. He had a fine smile of appreciation for the secrecy and patience of the two young men who had sought occasion against their sister’s lover, and there was a squaring of the angular jaws and a quick forward movement of the head, as of a snake when striking, to accompany his description of the death-blow. Orsino listened to the end and then went quietly out and returned to the drawing-room.

  Vittoria d’Oriani was seated near Corona, who was talking to her in a low tone. The other ladies were standing together before a famous old picture. The Marchesa di San Giacinto was smoking a cigarette. Orsino sat down by his mother, who looked at him quietly and smiled, and then went on speaking. The young girl glanced at Orsino. She was leaning forward, one elbow on her knee, and her chin supported in her hand, her lips a little parted as she listened with deep interest to what the elder woman said. Corona was telling her of Rome many years earlier, of the life in those days, of Pius the Ninth, and of the coming of the Italians.

  ‘How can you remember things that happened when you were so young!’ exclaimed Vittoria, watching the calm and beautiful face.

  ‘I was older than you even then,’ answered Corona, with a smile. ‘And I married very young,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I was married at your age, I think. How old are you, my dear?’

  ‘I am eighteen — just eighteen,’ replied Vittoria.

  ‘I was marri
ed when I was scarcely seventeen. It was too young.’

  ‘But you have always been so happy. Why do you say that?’

  ‘What makes you think that I have always been happy?’ asked the Princess.

  ‘Your face, I think. One or two of the nuns were very happy, too. But it was different. They had quite another look on their faces.’

  ‘I daresay,’ answered Corona, and she smiled again, and looked proudly at Orsino.

  She rose and crossed the room, feeling that she was neglecting her older guests for the young girl, who was thus left with Orsino again. He did not see Donna Maria Carolina’s quick glance as she discovered the fact, and made sure of it, looking again and again at the two while she joined a little in the conversation which was going on around her. She was very happy, just then, poor lady, and almost forgot to struggle against the accumulated provincialisms of twenty years, or to be anxious lest her new friends should discover that her pearls were false. For the passion for ornament, false or real, had not diminished with the improvement in her fortunes.

  But Orsino was not at all interested in Vittoria’s mother, and he had seen too much to care whether women wore real jewelry or not. He had almost forgotten the young girl after dinner when he had sat down in a corner of the smoking-room, but San Giacinto’s remark had vividly recalled her face to his memory, with a strong desire to see her again at once. Nothing was easier than to satisfy such a wish, and he found himself by her side.

  Once there, he did not trouble himself to speak to her for several moments. Vittoria showed considerable outward self-possession, though it was something of an ordeal to sit in silence, almost touching him and not daring to speak, while he was apparently making up his mind what to say. It had been much easier during dinner, she thought, because she had been put in her place without being consulted, and was expected to be there, without the least idea of attracting attention. Now, she felt a little dizzy for a moment, as though the room were swaying; and she was afraid that she was going to blush, which would have been ridiculous.

  Now, he was looking at her, while she looked down at her little white fan that lay on the white stuff of her frock, quite straight, between her two small, white-gloved hands. The nuns had not told her what to do in any such situation. Still Orsino did not speak. Two minutes had crawled by, like two hours, and she felt a fluttering in her throat.

  It was absurd, she thought. There was no reason for being so miserable. Very probably, he was not thinking of her at all. But it was of no use to tell herself such things, for her embarrassment grew apace, till she felt that she must spring from her seat and run from the room without looking at him. The fluttering became almost convulsive, and her hands pressed the little fan on each side, clenching themselves tightly. Still he did not speak.

  In utter despair she began to recite inwardly the litany of the saints, biting her lips lest they should move and he should guess what she was doing. In her suppressed excitement the holy personages raced and tumbled over each other at a most unseemly rate, till the procession was violently checked by the gravely indifferent tones of Orsino’s voice. Her hands relaxed, and she turned a little pale.

  ‘Have you been to Saint Peter’s?’ he enquired calmly.

  He was certainly not embarrassed, but he could think of nothing better to say to a young girl. On the first occasion, at dinner, he had asked her how she liked Rome. At all events it had opened the conversation. He remembered well enough the half dozen earnest words they had exchanged; and there was something more than mere memory, for he knew that he half wished they might reach the same point again. Perhaps, if the wish had been stronger and if Vittoria had been a little older, it might have been easier.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My mother took me as soon as we came. She was very anxious that we should pay our devotion to the patron saint.’

  Orsino smiled a little.

  ‘Saint Peter is not the patron of Rome,’ he observed. ‘Our protector is San Filippo Neri.’

  Vittoria looked up in genuine surprise.

  ‘Saint Peter is not the patron saint of Rome!’ she exclaimed. ‘But — I always thought—’

  ‘Naturally enough. All sorts of things in Rome seem to be what they are not. We seem to be alive for instance. We are not. Six or seven years ago we were all in a frantic state of excitement over our greatness. We have turned out to be nothing but a set of embalmed specimens in glass cases. Do not look so much surprised, signorina — or shocked — which is it?’

  He laughed a little.

  ‘I cannot help it,’ answered Vittoria simply, her brown eyes still fixed on him in wonder. ‘It is — it is all so different from what I expected — the things people say—’ She hesitated and stopped short, turning her eyes from him.

  The light was strong in the room, for the aged Prince hated the modern fashion of shading lamps almost to a dusk. Orsino watched Vittoria’s profile, and the graceful turn of her young throat as she looked away, and the fine growth of silky hair from the temples and behind the curving little ear. The room was warm, and he sat silently watching her for a moment. She was no longer embarrassed, for she was not thinking of herself, and she did not know how he was thinking of her just then.

  ‘I wonder what you expected us to be like,’ he said at last. ‘And what you expected us to say,’ he added as an afterthought.

  It crossed his mind that if she had been a married woman three or four years older he might have found her very amusing in conversation. He could certainly not have been talking in detached and almost idiotic phrases, as he was actually doing. But if she had been a young married woman, her charm would have been different, and of a kind not new to him. There was a novelty about Vittoria, and it attracted him strongly. There was real freshness and untried youth in her; she had that sort of delicacy which some flowers have, and which is not fragility, the bloom of a precious thing fresh broken from the mould and not yet breathed upon. He wondered whether all young girls had this inexpressible something, and if so, why he had never noticed it.

  ‘I am not quite sure,’ answered Vittoria, blushing a little at the thought that she could have had a preconceived idea of Orsino Saracinesca.

  The reply left everything to be desired in the way of brilliancy, but the voice was soft and expectant, as some women’s voices are, that seem just upon the point of vibrating to a harmonic while yielding the fundamental tone in all its roundness. There are rare voices that seem to possess a distinct living individuality, apart from the women to whom they belong, a sort of extra-natural musical life, of which the woman herself cannot control nor calculate the power. It is not the ‘golden voice’ which some great actresses have. One recognises that at the first hearing; one admits its beauty; one hears it three or four times, and one knows it by heart. It will pronounce certain phrases in a certain way, inevitably; it will soften and swell and ring with mathematical precision at the same verse, at the identical word, night after night, year after year, while it lasts. Vittoria’s voice was not like that. It had the spontaneity of independent life which a passion itself has when it takes possession of a man or a woman. Orsino felt it, and was conscious of a new sensitiveness in himself.

  On the whole, to make a very wide statement of a general truth, Italian men are moved by sense and Italian women are stirred by passion. Between passion and sense there is all the difference that exists between the object and the idea. Sense appreciates, passion idealises; sense desires all things, passion hungers for one; sense is material, though ever so æsthetised and refined, but passion clothes fact with unearthly attributes; sense is singly selfish, passion would make a single self of two. The sensual man says, ‘To have seen much and to have little is to have rich eyes and poor hands’; the passionate man or woman will ‘put it to the test, to win or lose it all,’ like Montrose. Sense is vulgar when it is not monstrous in strength, or hysterical to madness. Passion is always noble, even in its sins and crimes. Sense can be satisfied, and its satisfaction is a low sort of happiness; bu
t passion’s finer strings can quiver with immortal pain, and ring with the transcendent harmony that wakes the hero even in a coward’s heart.

  Vittoria first touched Orsino by her outward charm, by her voice, by her grace. But it was his personality, or her spontaneous imagination of it, which made an indelible impression upon her mind before the first evening of their acquaintance was over. The woman who falls in love with a man for his looks alone is not of a very high type, but the best and bravest men that ever lived have fallen victims to mere beauty, often without much intelligence, or faith, or honour.

  Orsino was probably not aware that he was falling in love at first sight. Very few men are, and yet very many people certainly begin to fall in love at a first meeting, who would scout the idea as an absurdity. For love’s beginnings are most exceedingly small in the greatest number of instances. Were they greater, a man might guard himself more easily against his fate.

  CHAPTER V

  AT THAT TIME a young Sicilian singer had lately made her first appearance in Rome and had been received with great favour. She was probably not destined ever to become one of the chief artists of the age, but she possessed exactly the qualifications necessary to fascinate a Roman audience. She was very young, she was undeniably beautiful, and she had what Romans called a ‘sympathetic’ voice. They think more of that latter quality in Italy than elsewhere. It is what in English we might call charm, and to have it is to have the certainty of success with an Italian public.

  Aliandra Basili was the daughter of a respectable notary in the ancient town of Randazzo, which lies on the western slope of Mount Etna, on the high road from Piedimonte to Bronte and Catania, within two hours’ ride of Camaldoli, the Corleone place. It is a solemn old walled town, built of almost black tufo, though many of the houses on the main street have now been stuccoed and painted; and it has a very beautiful Saracen-Norman cathedral.