Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Guido must have been dull indeed if he had not at last understood why he had been made to come, and what was expected of him. He was annoyed, and raised his eyebrows a little.

  “Will you come, Mademoiselle?” he asked coldly.

  “Yes,” answered Cecilia in a constrained tone, for she understood as well as Guido himself.

  Her mother was often afraid of her, and had not dared to tell her that the whole object of their visit was that she should see Guido and be seen by him. She thought that the Princess was really pushing matters too hastily, considering the time-honoured traditions of Latin etiquette, which forbid that young people should be left alone together for a moment, even when engaged to be married. But the Countess had great faith in the correctness of anything which such a very high-born person as the Princess Anatolie chose to suggest, and as the latter held her by the arm with affectionate condescension, she could not possibly run after her daughter.

  The two moved away in silence towards the flower garden, and soon disappeared round the corner of the house.

  “The roses are pretty,” said Guido, apologetically. “My aunt likes people to see them.”

  “They are magnificent,” answered Cecilia, without enthusiasm, and after a suitable interval.

  They went on, along a narrow gravel path, and though there was really room enough for Guido to walk by her side, he pretended that there was not, and followed her. She was very graceful, and he would not have thought of denying it. He even looked at her as she went before him, and he noticed the fact; but after he had taken cognisance of it, he was quite as indifferent as before. He no longer thought her voice pleasant, in his resentment at finding that a trap had been laid for him.

  “You see, there are a good many kinds of roses,” he observed, because it would have been rude to say nothing at all. “They are not all in flower yet.”

  “It is only the beginning of May,” the young girl answered, without interest.

  They came to the broader walk on the other side of the plot of roses, and Guido had to walk by her side again.

  “I like your friend,” she said suddenly.

  “I am very glad,” Guido replied, unbending at once and quietly looking at her now. “People do not always like him at first sight.”

  “No, I understand that. He has the look in his eyes that men get who have killed.”

  “Has he?” Guido seemed surprised. “Yes, he killed several men in Africa, when he was alone against many, and they meant to murder him. He is brave. Make him tell you about it, if you can induce him to talk.”

  “Is that so very hard?” Cecilia laughed. “Is he really more silent than you?”

  “Nobody ever called me silent,” answered Guido, smiling. “I suppose you thought so—” he stopped.

  “Because I did not know how to begin, and because you would not. Is that what you were going to say?”

  “It is very near the truth,” Guido admitted, very much amused.

  “I do not blame you,” said Cecilia. “How could you suppose that a mere girl like me could possibly have anything to say — a child that has not even been to her first party?”

  “Perhaps I was afraid that the mere child might talk about philosophy and Nietzsche,” suggested Guido.

  “And that would be dreadful, of course! Why? Is there any reason why a girl should not study such things? If there is, tell me. No one ever tells me what I ought to do.”

  “It is quite unnecessary, I have no doubt,” Guido answered promptly, and smiling again.

  “You mean quite useless, because I should not do it?”

  “Why should I be supposed to know that you are spoiled — if you are? Besides, you must not take up a man every time he makes you a silly compliment.”

  “Ah, now you are telling me what I ought to do! I like that better. Thank you!” Guido was amused.

  “Are you really grateful?” he asked, laughing a little. “Do you always speak the truth?”

  “Yes! Do you?” She asked the question sharply, as if she meant to surprise him.

  “I never lied to a man in my life,” Guido answered.

  “But you have to women?”

  “I suppose so,” said Guido, considerably diverted. “Most of us do, in moments of enthusiasm.”

  “Really! And — are you often — enthusiastic?”

  “No. Very rarely. Besides, I do not know whether it is worse in a man to tell fibs to please a woman, than it is in a woman to disbelieve what an honest man tells her on his word. Which is the least wrong, do you think?”

  “But since you admit that most men do not tell the truth to women—”

  “I said, on one’s word of honour. There is a difference.”

  “In theory,” said Cecilia.

  “Are there theories about lying?” asked Guido.

  “Oh yes,” answered the young girl, without hesitation. “There is Puffendorf’s, for instance, in his book on the Law of Nature and Nations—”

  “Good heavens!” exclaimed Guido.

  “Certainly. He makes out that there is a sort of unwritten agreement amongst all men that words shall be used in a definite sense which others can understand. That sounds sensible. And then, Saint Augustin, and La Placette, and Noodt—”

  “My dear young lady, you have led me quite out of my depth! What do those good people say?”

  “That all lying is absolutely wrong in itself, whether it harms anybody or not.”

  “And what do you think about it? That would be much more interesting to know.”

  “I told you, I always tell the truth,” Cecilia answered demurely.

  “Oh yes, of course! I had forgotten.”

  “And you do not believe it,” laughed the young girl. “It is time to go back to the house.”

  “If you will stay a little longer, I will believe everything you tell me.”

  “No, it is late,” answered Cecilia, her manner suddenly changing as the laugh died out of her voice.

  She walked on quickly, and he kept behind her.

  “I shall certainly go to your garden party,” said Guido.

  “Shall you?”

  She spoke in a tone of such utter indifference that Guido stared at her in surprise. A moment later they had rejoined her mother and the Princess.

  CHAPTER III

  AT THE BEGINNING of the twentieth century Rome has become even more cosmopolitan than it used to be, for the Romans themselves are turning into cosmopolitans, and the old traditional, serious, gloomy, and sometimes dramatic life of the patriarchal system has almost died out. One meets Romans of historical names everywhere, nowadays, in London, in Paris, and in Vienna, speaking English and French, and sometimes German, with extraordinary correctness, as much at home, to all appearance, in other capitals as they are in their own, and intimately familiar with the ways of many societies in many places.

  Cecilia Palladio, at eighteen years of age, had probably not spent a third of her life in Rome, and had been educated in different parts of the world and in a variety of ways. Her father, Count Palladio, as has been explained, had been engaged in promoting a number of undertakings, of which several had succeeded, and at his death, which had happened when Cecilia had been eight years old, he had left her part of his considerable fortune in safe guardianship, leaving his wife a life interest in the remainder. His old ally, the banker Solomon Goldbirn of Vienna, had administered the whole inheritance with wisdom and integrity, and at her marriage Cecilia would dispose of several millions of francs, and would ultimately inherit as much more from her mother’s share. From a European point of view, she was therefore a notable heiress, and even in the new world of millionnaires she would at least have been considered tolerably well off, though by no means what is there called rich.

  Two years after Palladio’s death her mother had married Count Fortiguerra, who had begun life in the army, then passed to diplomacy, had risen rapidly to the post of ambassador, and had died suddenly at Madrid when barely fifty years old, and when Cec
ilia was sixteen.

  The girl had a clear recollection of her own father, though she had never been with him very much, as his occupations constantly took him to distant parts of the world. He had seemed an old man to her, and had indeed been much older than her mother, for he had been a patriot in the later days of the Italian revolutions, and when still young he had been with Garibaldi in 1860. Cecilia remembered him a tall, active, grey-haired man with a pointed beard and big moustaches, and eyes which she now knew had been like her own. She remembered his unbounded energy, his patriotic and sometimes rather boastful talk, his black cigars, the vast heap of papers that always seemed to be in hopeless confusion on his writing table when he was at home, and the numerous eccentric-looking people who used to come and see him. She had been told that he was never to be disturbed, and never to be questioned, and that he was a great man. She had loved him with all her heart when he told her stories, and at other times she had been distinctly afraid of him. These stories had been fairy tales to the child, but she had now discovered that they had been history, or what passes for it.

  He had told her about King Amulius of Alba Longa, and of the twin founders of Rome, and of all the far-off times and doings, and he had described to her six wonderful maidens who lived in a palace in the Forum and kept a little fire burning day and night, which he compared to the great Roman race over whose destiny the mystic ladies were always watching. It was only quite lately that she had heard any learned men say in earnest some of the things which he had told her with a smile as if he were inventing a tale to amuse her child’s fancy. But what he had said had made a deep and abiding impression, and had become a part of her thought. She sometimes dreamed very vividly that she was again a little girl, sitting on his knee and listening to his wonderful stories. In other ways she had not missed him much after his death. Possibly her mother had not missed him either; for though she spoke of him occasionally with a sort of awe, it was never with anything like emotion.

  Count Fortiguerra had been kind to the child, or it might be truer to say that he had spoilt her by encouraging her without much judgment in her insatiable thirst for knowledge, and in her unnecessary ambition to excel in everything her fancy led her to attempt. Her mother, with a good deal of social foolishness and a very pliable character, possessed nevertheless a fair share of womanly intelligence, and knew by instinct that a young girl who is very different from other girls, no matter how clever she may be, rarely makes what people call a good marriage.

  There is probably nothing which leads a young woman to think a man a desirable husband so much as some exceptional gift, or even some brilliant eccentricity, which distinguishes him from other people; but there is nothing which frightens away the average desirable husband so much as anything of that sort in the young lady of his affections, and every married woman knows it very well.

  The excellent Countess used to wish that her daughter would grow up more like other girls, and in the sincere belief that a little womanly vanity must certainly counteract a desire for super-feminine mental cultivation, she honestly tried to interest Cecilia in such frivolities as dress, dancing, and romantic fiction. The result was only very partially successful. Cecilia was dressed to perfection, without seeming to take any trouble about it, and she danced marvellously before she had ever been to a ball; but she cared nothing for the novels she was allowed to read, and she devoured serious books with increasing intellectual voracity.

  Her stepfather laughed, and said that the girl was a genius and ought not to be hampered by ordinary rules; and his wife, who had at first feared lest he should dislike the child of her first husband, was only too glad that he should, on the contrary, show something like paternal infatuation for Cecilia, since no children of his own were born to him. He was a man, too, of wide reading and experience, and having considerable political insight into his times. Before Cecilia was eleven years old he talked to her about serious matters, as if she had been grown up, and often wished that the child should be at table and in the drawing-room when men who were making history came informally to the embassy. Cecilia had listened to their talk, and had remembered a very large part of what she had heard, understanding more and more as she grew up; and by far the greatest sorrow of her life had been the death of her stepfather.

  She was a modern Italian girl, and her mother was a Roman who had been brought up in something of the old strictness and narrowness, first in a convent, and afterwards in a rather gloomy home under the shadow of the most rigid parental authority. Exceptional gifts, exceptional surroundings, and exceptional opportunities had made Cecilia Palladio an exception to all types, and as unlike the average modern Italian young girl as could be imagined.

  The sun had already set as the mother and daughter drove away, but it was still broad day, and a canopy of golden clouds, floating high over the city, reflected rosy lights through the blue shadows in the crowded streets. The Countess Fortiguerra was pleasantly aware that every man under seventy turned to look after her daughter, from the smart old colonel of cavalry in his perfect uniform to the ragged and haggard waifs who sold wax matches at the corners of the streets. She was not in the least jealous of her, as mothers have been before now, and perhaps she was able to enjoy vicariously what she herself had never had, but had often wished for, the gift of nature which instantly fixes the attention of the other sex.

  “Why did you not tell me?” asked Cecilia, after a silence that had lasted five minutes.

  The Countess pretended not to understand, coloured a little, and tried to look surprised.

  “Why did you not tell me that you and the Princess wish me to marry her nephew?”

  This was direct, and an answer was necessary. The Countess laughed soothingly.

  “Dear child!” she cried, “it is impossible to deceive you! We only wished that you two might meet, and perhaps like each other.”

  “Well,” answered Cecilia, “we have met.”

  The answer was not encouraging, and she did not seem inclined to say more of her own accord, but her mother could not restrain a natural curiosity.

  “Yes,” she said, in a conciliatory tone, “but how do you like him?”

  Cecilia seemed to be hesitating for a moment.

  “Very much,” she answered, unexpectedly, after the pause.

  The Countess was so much pleased that she coloured again. She had never been able to hide what she felt, and she secretly envied people who never blushed.

  “I am so glad!” she said. “I was sure you would like each other.”

  “It does not follow that because I like him, he likes me,” answered Cecilia, quietly. “And even if he does, that is not a reason why we should marry. I may never marry at all.”

  “How can you say such things!” cried the Countess, not at all satisfied.

  Cecilia shrank a little in her corner of the deep phaeton and instinctively drew the edges of her little silk mantle together over her chest, as if to protect herself from something.

  “You know,” she said, almost sharply.

  “I shall never understand you,” her mother sighed.

  “Give me time to understand myself, mother,” answered the young girl, suddenly unbending. “I am only eighteen; I have never been into the world, and the mere idea of marrying—”

  She stopped short, and her firm lips closed tightly.

  “No, I do not understand,” said the Countess. “The thought of marriage was never disagreeable to me, even when I was quite young. It is the natural object of a woman’s life.”

  “There are exceptions, surely! There are nuns, for instance.”

  “Oh, if you wish to go into a convent—”

  “I have no religious vocation,” Cecilia answered gravely. “Or if I have, it is not of that sort.”

  “I am glad to hear it!” The Countess was beginning to lose her temper. “If you thought you had, you would be quite capable of taking the veil.”

  “Yes,” the young girl replied. “If I wished to be a nun, and i
f I were sure that I should be a good nun, I would enter a convent at once. But I am not naturally devout, I suppose.”

  “In my time,” said the Countess, with emphasis, “when young girls did not take the veil, they married.”

  As an argument, this was weak and lacked logic, and Cecilia felt rather pitiless just then.

  “There are only two possible ways of living,” she said; “either by religion, if you have any, and that is the easier, or by rule.”

  “And pray what sort of rule can there be to take the place of religion?”

  “Act so that the reason for your actions may be considered a universal law.”

  “That is nonsense!” cried the Countess.

  “No,” replied Cecilia, unmoved, “it is Kant’s Categorical Imperative.”

  “It makes no difference,” retorted her mother. “It is nonsense.”

  Cecilia said nothing, and her expression did not change, for she knew that her mother could not understand her, and she was not at all sure that she understood herself, as she had almost confessed. Seeing that she did not answer, the excellent Countess took the opportunity of telling her that her head had been turned by too much reading, though it was all her poor, dear stepfather’s fault, since he had filled her head with ideas. What she meant by “ideas” was not clear, except that they were of course dangerous in themselves and utterly subversive of social order, and that the main purpose of all education should be to discourage them in the young.

  “They should be left to old people,” she concluded; “they have nothing else to think of.”

  Cecilia had heard very little, being absorbed in her own reflections, but as her mother often spoke in the same way, the general drift of what she had said was unmistakable. The two were very unlike, but they were not unloving. In her heart the Countess took the most unbounded pride in her only child’s beauty and cleverness, except when the latter opposed itself to her social inclinations and ambitions; and the young girl really loved her mother when not irritated by some speech or action that offended her taste. That her mother should not always understand her seemed quite natural.