Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “What has the government to do with it?”

  “It has all sorts of claims on such discoveries, and especially on works of art. It reserves the right to buy them from the owners at a valuation, if they are sold at all.”

  “Then the government will buy this statue, I suppose.”

  “In the end, unless it allows the Vatican to buy it.”

  “I do not see what is going to happen,” said Sabina, growing bewildered.

  “The Senator must make everything over to you before it is sold,” answered Malipieri calmly.

  “How can he be made to do that?”

  “I do not know, but he shall.”

  “Do you mean that the law can force him to?”

  “The law might, perhaps, but I shall find some much shorter way.”

  Sabina was silent for a moment.

  “But he employs you on this work,” she said suddenly.

  “Not exactly.” Malipieri smiled. “I would not let Volterra pay me to grub underground for his benefit, any more than I would live in his house without paying him rent.”

  Sabina bit her lip and turned her face away suddenly, for the thoughtless words had hurt her.

  “I agreed to make the search merely because I am interested in archaeology,” he continued. “Until I met you I did not care what might become of anything we found in the palace.”

  “Why should you care now?”

  The question rose to her lips before she knew what she was saying, for what had gone before had disturbed her a little. It had been a very cruel speech, though he had not meant it. He looked at her thoughtfully.

  “I am not quite sure why I care,” he answered, “but I do.”

  Neither spoke for some time.

  “I suppose you pity me,” Sabina observed at last, rather resentfully.

  He said nothing.

  “You probably felt sorry for me as soon as you saw me,” she continued, leaning back in her chair and speaking almost coldly. “I am an object of pity, of course!”

  Malipieri laughed a little at the very girlish speech.

  “No,” he answered. “I had not thought of you in that light. I liked you, the first time I saw you. That is much simpler than pitying.”

  He laughed again, but it was at himself.

  “You treat me like a child,” Sabina said with a little petulance. “You have no right to!”

  “Shall I treat you like a woman, Donna Sabina?” he said, suddenly serious.

  “Yes. I am sure I am old enough.”

  “If you were not, I should certainly not feel as I do towards you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you are a woman, you probably guess.”

  “No.”

  “You may be offended,” suggested Malipieri.

  “Not unless you are rude — or pity me.” She smiled now.

  “Is it very rude to like a person?” he asked. “If you think it is, I will not go on.”

  “I am not sure,” said Sabina demurely, and she looked down.

  “In that case it is wiser not to run the risk of offending you past forgiveness!”

  It was very amusing to hear him talk, for no man had ever talked to her in this way before. She knew that he was thought immensely clever, but he did not seem at all superior now, and she was glad of it. She should have felt very foolish if he had discoursed to her learnedly about Carthage and antiquities. Instead, he was simple and natural, and she liked him very much; and the little devil that enters into every woman about the age of sixteen and is not often cast out before fifty, even by prayer and fasting, suddenly possessed her.

  “Rudeness is not always past forgiveness,” she said, with a sweet smile.

  Malipieri looked at her gravely and wondered whether he had any right to take up the challenge. He had never been in love with a young girl in his life, and somehow it did not seem fair to speak as he had been speaking. It was very odd that his sense of honour should assert itself just then. It might have been due to the artificial traditions of generations without end, before him. At the same time, he knew something of women, and in her last speech he recognized the womanly cooing, the call of the mate, that has drawn men to happiness or destruction ever since the world began. She was a mere girl, of course, but since he had said so much, she could not help tempting him to go to the end and tell her he loved her.

  Though Malipieri did not pretend to be a model of all the virtues, he was thoroughly fair in all his dealings, according to his lights, and just then he would have thought it the contrary of fair to say what she seemed to expect. He knew instinctively that no one had ever said it to her before, which was a good reason for not saying it lightly; and he was sure that he could not say it quite seriously, and almost certain also that she had not even begun to be really in love herself, though he felt that she liked him. On the other hand — for in the flash of a second he argued the case — he did not feel that she was the hypothetical defenceless maiden, helpless to resist the wiles of an equally hypothetical wicked young man. She had been brought up by a worldly mother since she had left the convent where she had associated with other girls, most of whom also had worldly mothers; and some of the wildest blood in Europe ran in her veins.

  On the whole, he thought it would be justifiable to tell her exactly what he felt, and she might do as she pleased about answering him.

  “I think I shall fall in love with you before long,” he said, with almost unnecessary calmness.

  Sabina had not expected that the first declaration she received in her life would take this mild form, but it affected her much more strongly than she could understand. Her hand tightened suddenly on the book she held, and she noticed a little fluttering at her heart and in her throat, and at the same time she was conscious of a tremendous determination not to show that she felt anything at all, but to act as if she had heard just such things before, and more also.

  “Indeed!” she said, with admirable indifference.

  Malipieri looked at her in surprise. An experienced flirt of thirty could not have uttered the single word more effectively.

  “I wonder whether you will ever like me better than you do now,” he said, by way of answer.

  She was wondering, too, but it was not likely that she would admit it.

  “I am very fickle,” she replied, with a perfectly self-possessed little laugh.

  “So am I,” Malipieri answered, following her lead. “My most desperate love affairs have never lasted more than a month or two.”

  “You have had a great many, I daresay,” Sabina observed, with no show of interest. She was amazed and delighted to find how easy it was to act her new part.

  “And you,” he asked, laughing, “how often have you been in love already?”

  “Let me see!”

  She turned her eyes to his, without turning her head, and letting the book lie in her lap she pretended to count on her fingers. He watched her gravely, and nodded as she touched each finger, as if he were counting with her. Suddenly she dropped both hands and laughed gaily.

  “How childish you are!” she exclaimed.

  “How deliciously frank you are!” he retorted, laughing with her.

  It was mere banter, and not witty at that, but they were growing intimate in it, much faster than either of them realized, for it was the first time they had been able to talk together quite without constraint, and it was the very first time Sabina had ever had a chance of talking as she pleased to a man whom she really thought young.

  Moreover they were quite modern young people, and therefore entirely devoid of all the sentimentality and “world-sorrow” which made youth so delightfully gloomy and desperately cynical, without the least real cynicism, in the middle of the nineteenth century. In those days no young man who showed a ray of belief in anything had a chance with a woman, and no woman had a chance with men unless she had a hidden sorrow. Women used to construct themselves a secret and romantic grief in those times, with as much skill as they bestowed
on their figure and face, and there were men who spent hours in reading Schopenhauer in order to pick out and treasure up a few terribly telling phrases; and love-making turned upon the myth that life was not worth living.

  We have changed all that now; whether for better or worse, the social historians of the future will decide for us after we are dead, so we need not trouble our heads about the decision unless we set up to be moralists ourselves. The enormous tidal wave of hypocrisy is retiring, and if the shore discovered by the receding waves is here and there horribly devastated and hopelessly bare, it is at least dry land.

  The wave covered everything for a long time, from religion to manners, from science to furniture, and we who are old enough to remember, and not old enough to regret, are rubbing our eyes and looking about us, as on a new world, amazed at having submitted so long to what we so heartily despised, glad to be able to speak our minds at last about many things, and astounded that people should at last be allowed to be good and suffered to be bad, without the affectation of seeming one or the other, in a certain accepted manner governed by fashion, and imposed by a civilized and perfectly intolerant society.

  While progress advances, it really looks as if humanity were reverting to its types, with an honest effort at simplicity. There is a revival of the moral individuality of the middle ages. The despot proudly says, like Alexander, or Montrose in love, that he will reign, and he will reign alone; and he does. The financier plunders mankind and does not pretend that he is a long-lost type of philanthropist. The anarchist proclaims that it is virtuous to kill kings, and he kills them. The wicked do not even make a pretence of going to church on Sundays. If this goes on, we shall have saints before long.

  Hypocrisy has disappeared even from literature, since no one who now writes books fit to read can be supposed to do so out of respect for public opinion, still less from any such base motive as a desire for gain.

  Malipieri and Sabina both felt that they had been drawn much nearer together by what had sounded like idle chatter, and yet neither of them was inclined to continue talking in the same way. Moreover time was passing quickly, and there was a matter to be decided before they parted. Malipieri returned to the subject of his discovery, and his desire that Sabina should see it.

  “But I cannot possibly come to the palace alone,” she objected. “It is quite out of the question. Even if—” she stopped.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Even if I were willing to do it—” she hesitated again.

  “You are not afraid, are you?” There was a slight intonation of irony in his question.

  “No, I am not afraid.” She paused a moment. “I suppose that if I saw a way of coming, I would come,” she said, then. “But I see no way. I cannot go out alone. Every one would know it. There would be a terrible fuss about it!”

  The idea evidently amused her.

  “Could you come with Sassi?” asked Malipieri presently. “He is respectable enough for anything.”

  “Even that would be thought very strange,” answered Sabina. “I have no good reason to give for going out alone with him.”

  “You would not give any reason till afterwards, and when it is over there cannot really be anything to be said about it. The Baroness goes out every afternoon. You can make an excuse for staying at home to-morrow, and then you will be alone in the house. Sassi will call for you in a closed cab and bring you to the palace, and I will be at the door to receive you. The chances are that you will be at home again before the Baroness comes in, and she will never know that you have been out. Does that look very hard?”

  “No, it looks easy.”

  “What time shall Sassi call for you to-morrow?” asked Malipieri, who wished to settle the matter at once.

  “At five o’clock,” answered Sabina, after a moment’s thought.

  “At five to-morrow, then. You had better not wear anything very new. The place where the statue lies is not a drawing-room, you know, and your frock may be spoilt.”

  “Very well.”

  She glanced at the clock, looked at Malipieri as if hesitating, and then rose.

  “I shall go back to my room now,” she said.

  “Yes. It is better. They may come in at any moment.” He had risen also.

  Their eyes met again, and they smiled at each other, as they realized what they were doing, that they had been nearly an hour together, unknown to any one, and had arranged something very like a clandestine meeting for the next day. Sabina put out her hand.

  “At five o’clock,” she said again. “Good-night.”

  He felt her touch for the first time since they had met. It was light and elastic as the pressure of a very delicate spring, perfectly balanced and controlled. But she, on her side, looked down suddenly and uttered an exclamation of surprise.

  “Oh! How rough your hand is!”

  He laughed, and held out his palm, which was callous as a day-labourer’s.

  “My man and I have done all the work ourselves,” he said, “and it has not been play.”

  “It must be delightful!” answered Sabina with admiration. “I wish I were a man! We could have done it together.”

  She went to the door, and she turned to smile at him again as she laid her hand on the knob. He remembered her afterwards as she stood there a single moment with the light on her misty hair and white cheeks, and the little shadow round her small bare throat. He remembered that he would have given anything to bring her back to the place where she had sat. There was much less doubt in his mind as to what he felt then than there had been a few minutes earlier.

  Half an hour after Sabina had disappeared Malipieri and Volterra were seated in deep armchairs in the smoking-room, the Baron having sent his wife to bed a few minutes after they had come in. She obeyed meekly as she always did, for she had early discovered that although she was a very energetic woman, Volterra was her master and that it was hopeless to oppose his slightest wish. It is true that in return for the most absolute obedience the fat financier gave her the strictest fidelity and all the affection of which he was capable. Like more than one of the great modern freebooters, the Baron’s private life was very exemplary, yet his wife would have been willing to forgive him something if she might occasionally have had her own way.

  This evening he was not in good-humour, as Malipieri found out as soon as they were alone together. He chewed the end of the enormous Havana he had lighted, he stuck his feet out straight in front of him, resting his heels on the floor and turning his shining patent leather toes straight up, he folded his hands upon the magnificent curve of his white waistcoat, and leaning his head well back he looked steadily at the ceiling. All these were very bad signs, as his wife could have told Malipieri if she had stayed in the room.

  Malipieri smoked in silence for some time, entirely forgetting him and thinking of Sabina.

  “Well, Mr. Archaeologist,” the Baron said at last, allowing his big cigar to settle well into one corner of his mouth, “there is the devil to pay.”

  He spoke as if the trouble were Malipieri’s fault. The younger man eyed him coldly.

  “What is the matter?” he enquired, without the least show of interest.

  “You are being watched,” answered Volterra, still looking at the ceiling. “You are now one of those interesting people whose movements are recorded like the weather, every twelve hours.”

  “Yes,” said Malipieri. “I have known that for some time.”

  “The next time you know anything so interesting I wish you would inform me,” replied Volterra.

  His voice and his way of speaking irritated Malipieri. The Baroness had been better educated than her husband from the first; she was more adaptable and she had really learned the ways of the society she loved, but the Baron was never far from the verge of vulgarity, and he often overstepped it.

  “When you asked me to help you,” Malipieri said, “you knew perfectly well what my political career had been. I believe you voted for the bill which drove me o
ut of the country.”

  “Did I?” The Baron watched the smoke of his cigar curling upwards.

  “I think you did. Not that I bear you the least malice. I only mean that you might very naturally expect that I should be thought a suspicious person, and that detectives would follow me about.”

  “Nobody cares a straw for your politics,” retorted Volterra rudely.

  “Then I shall be the more free to think as I please,” Malipieri answered with calm.

  “Perfectly so. In the meantime it is not the Ministry of the Interior that is watching you. The present Ministry does not waste time and money on such nonsense. You are being watched because you are suspected of trying to get some statues or pictures out of Italy, in defiance of the Pacca law.”

  “Oh!” Malipieri blew a whiff of smoke out with the ejaculation, for he was surprised.

  “I have it from one of the cabinet,” Volterra continued. “He told me the facts confidentially after dinner. You see, as you are living in my house, the suspicion is reflected on me.”

  “In your house?”

  “The Palazzo Conti is my house,” answered the Baron, taking his cigar from his mouth for the first time since he had lighted it, and holding it out at arm’s length with a possessive sweep while he leaned back and looked at the ceiling again. “It all belongs to me,” he said. “I took it for the mortgage, with everything in it.”

  “By the bye,” said Malipieri, “what became of that Velasquez, and those other pictures?”

  “Was there a Velasquez?” enquired the Baron carelessly, without changing his attitude.

  “Yes. It was famous all over Europe. It was a family portrait.”

  “I remember! It turned out to be a copy after all.”

  “A copy!” repeated Malipieri incredulously.

  “Yes, the original is in Madrid,” answered the Baron with imperturbable self-possession.

  “And all those other pictures turned out to be copies, too, I daresay,” suggested Malipieri.

  “Every one of them. It was a worthless collection.”

  “In that case it was hardly worth while to take so much trouble in getting them out of the country secretly.” Malipieri smiled.