Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  As for Regina, the life suited her, at least for a while, and her beauty was refined rather than marred by a little bodily weariness. The splendid blush of pleasure rarely rose in her cheeks now, but the clear pallor of her matchless complexion was quite as lovely. The constitution of a healthy Roman peasant girl does not break down easily under a course of pleasure and amusement, and it might never have occurred to Regina that Marcello was almost exhausted already, if her eyes had not been opened to his condition by some one else.

  They were leaving the Théâtre Français one evening, intending to go home on foot as the night was fine and warm. They had seen Hernani, and Regina had naturally found it hard to understand the story, even with Marcello’s explanations; the more so as he himself had never seen the play before, and had come to the theatre quite sure that it must be easily comprehensible from the opera founded on it, which he had heard. Regina’s arm was passed through his, and as they made their way through the crowd, under the not very brilliant lights in the portico, Marcello was doing his best to make the plot of the piece clear, and Regina was looking earnestly into his face, trying to follow what he said. Suddenly he heard an Italian voice very near to him, calling him by name, in a tone of surprise.

  “Marcello!”

  He started, straightened himself, turned his head, and faced the Contessa dell’ Armi. Close beside her was Aurora, leaning forward a little, with an expression of cold curiosity; she had already seen Regina, who did not withdraw her hand from Marcello’s arm.

  “You here?” he cried, recovering himself quickly.

  As he spoke, the Contessa realised the situation, and at the same moment Marcello met Aurora’s eyes. Regina felt his arm drop by his side, as if he were disowning her in the presence of these two smart women who were friends of his. She forgave him, for she was strangely humble in some ways, but she hated them forthwith.

  The Contessa, who was a woman of the world, nodded quietly and smiled as if she had seen nothing, but she at once began to steer her daughter in a divergent direction.

  “You are looking very ill,” she said, turning her head back as she moved away. “Come and see us.”

  “Where?” asked Marcello, making half a step to follow, and looking at the back of Aurora’s head and at the pretty hat she wore.

  The Contessa named a quiet hotel in the Rue Saint Honoré, and was gone in the crowd. Marcello stood quite still for a moment, staring after the two. Then he felt Regina’s hand slipping through his arm.

  “Come,” she said softly, and she led him away to the left.

  He did not speak for a long time. They turned under the arches into the Palais Royal, and followed the long portico in silence, out to the Rue Vivienne and the narrow Rue des Petits Champs. Still Marcello did not speak, and without a word they reached the Avenue de l’Opéra. The light was very bright there, and Regina looked long at Marcello’s face, and saw how white it was.

  “She said you were looking very ill,” said she, in a voice that shook a little.

  “Nonsense!” cried Marcello, rousing himself. “Shall we have supper at Henry’s or at the Café de Paris? We are near both.”

  “We will go home,” Regina answered. “I do not want any supper to-night.”

  They reached their hotel. Regina tossed her hat upon a chair in the sitting-room and drew Marcello to the light, holding him before her, and scrutinising his face with extraordinary intensity. Suddenly her hands dropped from his shoulders.

  “She was right; you are ill. Who is this lady that knows your face better than I?”

  She asked the question in a tone of bitterness and self-reproach.

  “The Contessa dell’ Armi,” Marcello answered, with a shade of reluctance.

  “And the girl?” asked Regina, in a flash of intuition.

  “Her daughter Aurora.” He turned away, lit a cigarette, and rang the bell.

  Regina bit her lip until it hurt her, for she remembered how often he had pronounced that name in his delirium, many months ago. She could not speak for a moment. A waiter came in answer to the bell, and Marcello ordered something, and then sat down. Regina went to her room and did not return until the servant had come back and was gone again, leaving a tray on the table.

  “What is the matter?” asked Marcello in surprise, as he caught sight of her face.

  She sat down at a little distance, her eyes fixed on him.

  “I am a very wicked woman,” she said, in a dull voice.

  “You?” Marcello laughed and filled the glasses.

  “I am letting you kill yourself to amuse me,” Regina said. “I am a very, very wicked woman. But you shall not do it any more. We will go away at once.”

  “I am perfectly well,” Marcello answered, holding out a glass to her; but she would not take it.

  “I do not want wine to-night,” she said. “It is good when one has a light heart, but my heart is as heavy as a stone. What am I good for? Kill me. It will be better. Then you will live.”

  “I should have died without you long ago. You saved my life.”

  “To take it again! To let you consume yourself, so that I may see the world! What do I care for the world, if you are not well? Let us go away quickly.”

  “Next week, if you like.”

  “No! To-morrow!”

  “Without waiting to hear Melba?”

  “Yes — to-morrow!”

  “Or Sarah Bernhardt in Sardou’s new play?”

  “To-morrow! To-morrow morning, early! What is anything compared with your getting well?”

  “And your new summer costume that Doucet has not finished? How about that?”

  Marcello laughed gaily and emptied his glass. But Regina rose and knelt down beside him, laying her hands on his.

  “We must go to-morrow,” she said. “You shall say where, for you know what countries are near Paris, and where there are hills, and trees, and waterfalls, and birds that sing, where the earth smells sweet when it rains, and it is quiet when the sun is high. We will go there, but you know where it is, and how far.”

  “I have no doubt Settimia knows,” laughed Marcello. “She knows everything.”

  But Regina’s face was grave, and she shook her head slowly.

  “What is the use of laughing?” she asked. “You cannot deceive me, you know you cannot! I deceived myself and was blind, but my eyes are open now, and I can only see the truth. Do you love me, Marcello?”

  His eyes looked tired a moment ago, even when he laughed, but the light came into them now. He breathed a little faster and bent forward to kiss her. She could feel the rising pulse in his thin hands. But she leaned back as she knelt, and pressed her lips together tightly.

  “Not that,” she said, after they had both been motionless ten seconds. “I don’t mean that! Love is not all kisses. There is more. There are tears, but there is more too. There is pain, there is doubting, there is jealousy, and more than that! There is avarice also, for a woman who loves is a miser, counting her treasure when others sleep. And she would kill any one who robbed her, and that is murder. Yet there is more, there are all the mortal sins in love, and even then there is worse. For there is this. She will not count her own soul for him she loves, no, not if the saints in Paradise came down weeping and begging her to think of her salvation. And that is a great sin, I suppose.”

  Marcello looked at her, thinking that she was beautiful, and he said nothing.

  “But perhaps a man cannot love like that,” she added presently. “So what is the use of my asking you whether you love me? You love Aurora too, I daresay! Such as your man’s love is, and of its kind, you have enough for two!”

  Marcello smiled.

  “I do not love Aurora now,” he said.

  “But you have, for you talked to her in your fever, and perhaps you will again, or perhaps you wish to marry her. How can I tell what you think? She is prettier than I, for she has fair hair. I knew she had. I hate fair women, but they are prettier than we dark things ever are. All men think s
o. What does it matter? It was I that saved your life when you were dying, and the people meant you to die. I shall always have that satisfaction, even when you are tired of me.”

  “Say never, then!”

  “Never? Yes, if I let you stay here, you will not have time to be tired of me, for you will grow thinner and whiter, and one day you will be breathing, and not breathing, and breathing a little again, and then not breathing at all, and you will be lying dead with your head on my arm. I can see how it will be, for I thought more than once that you were dead, just like that, when you had the fever. No! If I let that happen you will never be tired of me while you are alive, and when you are dead Aurora cannot have you. Perhaps that would be better. I would almost rather have it so.”

  “Then why should we go away?” asked Marcello, smiling a little.

  “Because to let you die would be a great sin, much worse than losing my soul for you, or killing some one to keep you. Don’t you see that?”

  “Why would it be worse?”

  “I do not know, but I am sure it would. Perhaps because it would be losing your soul instead of mine. Who knows? It is not in the catechism. The catechism has nothing about love, and I never learned anything else. But I know things that I never learned. Every woman does. How? The heart says them, and they are true. Where shall we go to-morrow?”

  “Do you really want to leave Paris?”

  To impress upon him that she was in earnest Regina squeezed his hands together in hers with such energy that she really hurt him.

  “What else have I been saying for half an hour?” she asked impatiently. “Do you think I am playing a comedy?” She laughed. “Remember that I have carried you up and down stairs in my arms,” she added, “and I could do it again!”

  “If you insist on going away, I will walk,” Marcello answered with a laugh.

  She laughed too, as she rose to her feet. He put out his hand to fill his glass again, but she stopped him.

  “No,” she said, “the wine keeps you awake, and makes you think you are stronger than you are. You shall sleep to-night, and to-morrow we will go. I am so glad it is settled!”

  She could do what she would with him, and so it turned out that Marcello left Paris without going to see the Contessa and Aurora; and when he was fairly away he felt that it was a relief not to be able to see them, since it would have been his duty to do so if he had stayed another day. Maddalena dell’ Armi had not believed that he would come, but she stopped at home that afternoon on the bare possibility. Aurora made up her mind that if he came she would shut herself up in her own room. She expected that he would certainly call before the evening, and was strangely disappointed because he did not.

  “Who was that lady with him last night?” she asked of her mother.

  “I do not know that — lady,” answered the Contessa, with a very slight hesitation before pronouncing the last word.

  But they had both heard of Regina already.

  CHAPTER X

  THE CONTESSA WROTE to Corbario two days later, addressing her letter to Rome, as she did not know where he was. It was not like her to meddle in the affairs of other people, or to give advice, but this was a special case, and she felt that something must be done to save Marcello; for she was a woman of the world, with much experience and few illusions, and she understood at a glance what was happening to her dead friend’s son. She wrote to Folco, telling him of the accidental meeting in the portico of the Théâtre Français, describing Marcello’s looks, and saying pretty clearly what she thought of the extremely handsome young woman who was with him.

  Now Paris is a big city, and it chanced that Corbario himself was there at that very time. Possibly he had kept out of Marcello’s way for some reason of his own, but he had really not known that the Contessa was there. Her letter was forwarded from Rome and reached him four days after it was written. He read it carefully, tore it into several dozen little bits, looked at his watch, and went at once to the quiet hotel in the Rue Saint Honoré. The Contessa was alone, Aurora having gone out with her mother’s maid.

  Maddalena was glad to see him, not because she liked him, for she did not, but because it would be so much easier to talk of what was on her mind than to write about it.

  “I suppose you are surprised to see me,” said Folco, after the first conventional greeting.

  “No, for one may meet any one in Paris, at any time of the year. When I wrote, I thought Marcello must be alone here — I mean, without you,” she added.

  “I did not know he had been here, until I heard that he was gone. He left three or four days ago. I fancy that when you wrote your letter he was already gone.”

  “Do you let him wander about Europe as he pleases?” asked the Contessa.

  “He is old enough to take care of himself,” answered Corbario. “There is nothing worse for young men than running after them and prying into their affairs. I say, give a young fellow his independence as soon as possible. If he has been brought up in a manly way, with a feeling of self-respect, it can only do him good to travel alone. That is the English way, you know, and always succeeds.”

  “Not always, and besides, we are not English. It is not ‘succeeding,’ as you call it, in Marcello’s case. He will not live long, if you let him lead such a life.”

  “Oh, he is stronger than he looks! He is no more threatened with consumption than I am, and a boy who can live through what happened to him two years ago can live through anything.”

  Not a muscle of his face quivered as he looked quietly into the Contessa’s eyes. He was quite sure that she did not suspect him of having been in any way concerned in Marcello’s temporary disappearance.

  “Suppose him to be as strong as the strongest,” Maddalena answered. “Put aside the question of his health. There is something else that seems to me quite as important.”

  “The moral side?” Corbario smiled gravely. “My dear lady, you and I know the world, don’t we? We do not expect young men to be saints!”

  Maddalena, who had not always been a saint, returned his look coldly.

  “Let us leave the saints out of the discussion,” she said, “unless we speak of Marcello’s mother. She was one, if any one ever was. I believe you loved her, and I know that I did, and I do still, for she is very real to me, even now. Don’t you owe something to her memory? Don’t you know how she would have felt if she could have met her son the other night, as I met him, looking as he looked? Don’t you know that it would have hurt her as nothing else could? Think a moment!”

  She paused, waiting for his answer and watching his impenetrable face, that did not change even when he laughed, that could not change, she thought; but she had not seen him by Marcello’s bedside at the hospital, when the mask had been gone for a few seconds. It was there now, in all its calm stillness.

  “You may be right,” he answered, almost meekly, after a little pause. “I had not looked at it in that light. You see, I am not a very sensitive man, and I was brought up rather roughly. My dear wife went to the other extreme, of course. No one could really be what she wished to make Marcello. He felt that himself, though I honestly did all I could to make him act according to his mother’s wishes. But now that she is gone—” he broke off, and was silent a moment. “You may be right,” he repeated, shaking his head thoughtfully. “You are a very good woman, and you ought to know.”

  She leaned back in her chair, and looked at him in silence, wondering whether she was not perhaps doing him a great injustice; yet his voice rang false to her ear, and the old conviction that he had never loved his wife came back with increased force and with the certainty that he had been playing a part for years without once breaking down.

  “I will join Marcello, and see what I can do,” he said.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Oh, yes! He keeps me informed of his movements; he is very good about writing. You know how fond of each other we are, too, and I am sure he will be glad to see me. He is back in Italy by this time. H
e was going to Siena. We were to have met in Rome in about a month, to go down to San Domenico together, but I will join him at once.”

  “If you find that — that young person with him, what shall you do?”

  “Send her about her business, of course,” answered Folco promptly.

  “Suppose that she will not go, what then?”

  “It can only be a question of money, my dear lady. Leave that to me. Marcello is not the first young fellow who has been in a scrape!”

  Still Maddalena did not trust him, and she merely nodded with an air of doubt.

  “Shall I not see Aurora?” he asked suddenly.

  “She is out,” answered the Contessa. “I will tell her that you asked after her.”

  “Is she as beautiful as ever?” inquired Folco.

  “She is a very pretty girl.”

  “She is beautiful,” Folco said, with conviction. “I have never seen such a beautiful girl as she was, even when she was not quite grown up. No one ever had such hair and such eyes, and such a complexion!”

  “Dear me!” exclaimed Maddalena with a little surprise. “I had no idea that you thought her so good-looking!”

  “I always did. As for Marcello, we used to think he would never have eyes for any one else.”

  “Young people who have known each other well as children rarely fall in love when they grow up,” answered Maddalena.