Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Castiglione smiled at her innocent ignorance of lovers’ tricks, for he was quieter now, and very happy at the thought of seeing her often. It would never have occurred to him to do the foolish thing of which Teresa Crescenzi had suspected him on the previous afternoon.

  ‘The great matter is that I am to see you,’ he said; ‘that the separation is over, and that we love each other!’

  ‘That — yes! Oh, that above and beyond all things, and for ever and ever.’

  The lovelight was in her eyes as she gazed at him, and her parted lips were delicately beautiful. Again his hands pressed one another very hard, and he felt that he set his teeth. He suddenly wondered how long he could keep his promise, and by what manner of death he would choose to end his life when he felt that he was going to break it. She was putting upon him a heavier trial and a far harder expiation than she knew. Her eyes were so dark and tender, her parted lips were so sweet to see! In her reliance on herself and him she had already loosened the great restraint that had bound her since the evil hour; she cared not to hide the outward looks of love. She even longed to see in his eyes what she felt in her own.

  ‘You love me less than I love you, dear,’ she said softly. ‘You are less happy than I am, because we are to meet often!’

  Without a word Castiglione rose from his seat and went to the window at the further end of the room, and stood there, looking down through the slits of the blinds. Maria half understood, and sighed.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said, rather sorrowfully.

  ‘I’m only a man, Maria,’ he answered, turning his head. ‘You must not make it too hard for me. I love you in a man’s way, and you have made me promise to love you in yours. I must learn, before I can be sure of myself.’

  Maria reflected a moment. Her thoughts were full of an ideal sacrifice.

  ‘Balduccio!’ She called to him gently, for he was looking down at the street again. ‘Shall I give you back your word and tell you to go away for a long time, if it’s going to be so hard for you?’

  ‘No!’

  The single syllable was rough and strong, for he resented what she had said. She rose too and went to him at the window.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’ she asked humbly.

  His hand grasped her bare wrist and tightened upon it almost as if he meant to hurt her, and he spoke in short, harsh sentences.

  ‘No, I am not angry. I love you too much. You don’t understand what I feel. How should you? I’ve been as faithful to you as you’ve been to your husband all these years. And now I’m with you, and we are alone, and we love each other, and I’m nothing but a man after all — and if you look at me in the old way I shall go mad or kill you.’

  He drew her wrist roughly to him and kissed her hand once, roughly, and dropped it. He had done that in the old days too, and Maria saw it all again in a violent flash, as men see danger ahead in a storm at night, lit up by quivering lightning.

  She drew breath sharply and turned away from him. She leaned upon the mantelpiece and rested her throbbing forehead upon her hands.

  ‘Oh, why have we these earthly bodies of ours?’ she moaned. ‘Why? why? Why could not God have made us like the angels?’

  ‘Why not, indeed!’ echoed Castiglione, in bitter unbelief.

  ‘Even like the fallen angels!’ she cried desperately. ‘They fell by pride, but not by this! Are there not temptations for heart and soul and mind enough to try us, to raise us up if we overcome, to damn us if we yield? Enough to send us to hell or heaven — without this? O God, that what Thou hast made in Thine own image should be so vile, so vile, so vile!’

  Her despair was real; her cry came from an almost breaking heart. Castiglione came to her now and laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.

  ‘Maria! Look at me, dear! Don’t be afraid!’

  She raised her head timidly from her hands and turned her eyes slowly to him, more than half afraid. But when she saw that his own were calm and grave again, she gave one little cry of relief and buried her face upon his shoulder, clinging to him with both hands; and her touch did not stir his pulse now.

  ‘No, I’m not afraid of you!’ she softly cried. ‘It was only a moment, dear, only one dreadful moment, for I trust you with myself as I would trust you with my soul! Sometimes—’ she looked up lovingly to his face— ‘sometimes each of us must be brave for both, you know. As we are now, you might even kiss me once and I should fear nothing!’

  He smiled and bent down and kissed her cheek; and there was no thought in him that he would not have told her. But then he gently took her hands from his shoulder and made her sit down as they had sat before.

  ‘That was not wrong, was it?’ she asked, with a happy smile.

  ‘No,’ he answered quietly, ‘there was no wrong in that, neither to you nor to the others.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she answered, ‘so glad! But it would not be right to do it often.’

  ‘No, not often. Not for a long time again.’

  They were both silent in the ebbing of the tide which at the full had nearly swept them from their feet. At heart, in spite of all, there was something strangely innocent in them both. Castiglione’s friends would have wondered much if they could have understood him, as some of the graver sort might. Few men of his age, beyond the cloister, knew less of women’s ways and women’s love than he; few soldiers, indeed, and surely not one of his brother officers. To wear the King’s uniform ten years in the gayest and smartest cavalry regiment of the service is not a school for austere virtue or innocence of heart. All that Castiglione’s comrades noticed was that he talked but little of women, who were often the chief subject of the others’ conversation, and that he was very reticent about the ones he knew. They respected him for that, on the whole, though they sometimes chaffed him a little in a friendly way. They all agreed among themselves that he had some secret and lasting attachment for a woman of their own class whose name he succeeded in keeping from them in spite of their repeated attempts to find it out. He was such a manly man that they liked him the better for it; the more, because great reticence was not their own chief quality. For the rest, though, he was poorer than most of them, he was always ready to join in anything except a general raid on womankind. He played cards with them, and when he could lose no more, he said so; he was honest in matters of horseflesh and gave sound advice; he never shirked his duty and left it for another to do; he was good-natured in doing a comrade’s work when he was asked to do it for any good reason; he was the best rider in the regiment, and he never talked about what he had done, or could do, with a horse; he was not over clever, but he was good company and told a story with a touch of humour; and he never borrowed from a brother officer, nor refused to lend, if he had any money. Altogether, he was the best comrade in the world and everybody liked and respected him, from the rather supercilious colonel, who was an authentic duke, and the crabbed old major, who had been wounded at Dogali, to the rawest recruit that was drafted in from a Sardinian village or a shepherd’s hut in the Apennines.

  But none of all those who liked and respected him guessed that in the arts of love he was considerably behind the youngest subaltern in the regiment, at least, so far as his own experience was concerned, for he could have written volumes about that of the rest as described by themselves. As a cadet, indeed, he had not been a model of austerity; but he had fallen in love with Maria a few days after he had received his commission, and such as he had been then he had remained ever since, except for her. If his colonel had known this, he would have smiled sarcastically and would have said that Castiglione was a case of arrested development, the old major would have stared at him stupidly without in the least comprehending that such a man could exist, and the rest of the mess would have roared with laughter and called him a crazy sentimentalist. But none of them knew the truth, and he had lived his life in his own way. There are not many men in the great world like Baldassare del Castiglione, but there are a few; and in the little world, in simple countries, there
are more of them than the great world ever dreams of.

  This long digression, if it be one, is to explain why Castiglione accepted Maria’s strangely exalted plan for the future of both, instead of telling her quite frankly that the chances in favour of its success were too small for poor humanity to count upon, and that the best way was to part again and to meet very rarely or not at all, until the fire of life should be extinguished in the grey years, and they could look at each other without seeing so much as a spark of it left in each other’s tired eyes. That is what he would have done, as a man of honour, if he had known as many other women of his own class intimately as some of his comrades did. Or, if he had been like them in other things too, and had loved Maria less truly, he would have sat down to besiege the fortress he had once stormed, and would have gone to work scientifically to demolish its defences, making pretence of accepting the trusting woman’s generous offer in order to outwit and conquer her by slow degrees. And if he had done either the one or the other, that is to say, if he had understood women’s ways, this would either have been the story of a vulgar fault, or it would have ended abruptly with Castiglione’s departure.

  It is neither. Baldassare was innocent enough as well as honourable enough to believe that he and Maria could keep the promise they had made; and he loved her so dearly that the prospect of seeing her often was like a vision of heaven already half realised.

  So on that day they began the new life together, trusting that they could live it faithfully to the end, but truly resolved to part again for ever if real danger came near them.

  They believed in themselves and in each other. Maria had faith in a higher power from which she was to receive strength; Castiglione had little or nothing of this, but he said to himself plainly that if he broke his word he would die for it on the same day, and he loved mere life enough to think the forfeit a heavy one.

  They counted upon themselves and upon each other. There was nothing to suggest that quite external circumstances might influence their lives to make the task easier or more difficult than they anticipated. Most certainly neither believed that there could be moments ahead which would be harder to bear than those through which they had already lived.

  When Castiglione went away that afternoon they had agreed that he should come again on the next day but one, and once again before he went back to Milan, and that he should at once take steps to exchange into the Piedmont Lancers, if possible, as his old regiment was likely to remain in Rome fully eighteen months longer.

  CHAPTER VII

  IF GIULIANA PARENZO had been one of those nervous, sensitive women who are always thinking about themselves and fancying that their friends are on the point of betraying them, she would have noticed a little change in Maria’s manner after Castiglione’s visit to Rome. It was not that Maria was at all less fond of her than before, or less affectionate, or apparently less glad to see her. It was much more subtle than that. There is a great difference between a hungry man and a man who merely has an appetite. The one must have food, the other is only pleased to have it. Giuliana’s friendship had long been a necessity to Maria, but it now sank to the condition of being merely an added satisfaction in her life. Formerly she would not have given it up for anything else; but now, if she could have been forced to choose between Castiglione and Giuliana, she would have given up her friend.

  The Marchesa, however, was not a sensitive or nervous woman, and she noticed nothing of the change that had taken place. She was therefore very much surprised when her husband spoke to her about Maria. It was late in the afternoon, some days after Castiglione had gone back to Milan, and Parenzo had come home tired from the Foreign Office and was smoking in his wife’s dressing-room, which was his favourite resort at that hour. Like many busy women, Giuliana had her writing-table there, in order to be safe from interruption, and she was occupied with some notes which had to be finished before dinner, while her husband sat in a low straw chair watching her, and devising a new costume for their approaching trip to England. He had always considered it his especial mission to superintend his wife’s dress, and his taste was admirable. He was a small wiry man with a neat reddish beard, not much hair on the top of his head, and a single eyeglass. But he had an energetic nose and forehead, and a singularly pleasant smile.

  Giuliana finished one of her notes and looked up, and instantly the smile came into his face, for he was quite as much in love with her as when he had married her. She looked pleased, and nodded to him before taking another sheet of paper.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about Maria Montalto,’ he said suddenly, arresting her attention.

  Giuliana looked a little surprised, and laid down her pen.

  ‘Yes, dear. What do you wish to know about her?’

  ‘You are just as intimate with her as ever, are you not?’ he inquired.

  ‘Oh, yes! What could come between us? Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because if you are as good friends as you always used to be, I think you had better tell her that people are talking about her. I like her, too, and it is a great pity that anything disagreeable should be said, especially if there is no ground for it.’

  ‘I’m sure there is none,’ said Giuliana promptly. ‘What is the gossip about her?’

  ‘That she is seeing too much of Baldassare del Castiglione.’

  ‘He is in Milan, my dear. How can she see much of him? What nonsense! Really, Mondo, you should not repeat such stuff to me! It’s too absurd!’

  Parenzo’s first name was Sigismondo, of which Mondo is the diminutive. He shook his head quietly at his wife’s rebuke.

  ‘I know he is in Milan,’ he answered. ‘But he was here for a fortnight a while ago, and people are saying that they met every day. When he did not go to see her early in the afternoon, they met in quiet corners and walked together.’

  ‘I suppose that by “people” you mean Teresa Crescenzi,’ laughed Giuliana. ‘She is the mother of all gossip, you know.’

  ‘It was de Maurienne who told me,’ rejoined Sigismondo.

  ‘That’s the same thing!’ Giuliana laughed again.

  ‘Oh, is it? I did not know. You don’t say so!’

  Parenzo seemed amused and interested. Monsieur de Maurienne was a second secretary of the French Embassy, a rich man with artistic tastes, who gave out that if he were ordered to any other post he would leave the service and continue to live in Rome.

  ‘Teresa means to marry him,’ Giuliana explained. ‘I daresay she will. Of course, the story about Maria comes from her. There is not a word of truth in it. Castiglione is gone to Milan and may not come back for years.’

  ‘My dear, I’m always ready to take your opinion in such matters. But this afternoon Casalmaggiore — you know who I mean?’

  ‘The Colonel of Piedmont Lancers?’

  ‘Yes. He dropped in to see me at the Foreign Office about a special passport for a friend of his, and he happened to say that Castiglione had asked to exchange back into his old regiment, and that the matter would certainly be arranged, as every one liked him so much. The Colonel was very curious to find out whether there was a lady in the case, and what her name might be. He seems to have plenty of curiosity, Casalmaggiore! I said I knew nothing about Castiglione’s love affairs, and I did not refer him to Teresa Crescenzi, for he was the last man she tried to marry before de Maurienne! That was all.’

  Giuliana looked at her husband gravely.

  ‘I did not know that Castiglione wished to come to Rome,’ she said. ‘I doubt if Maria knows it, and I’m almost sure she will not be pleased.’

  ‘I should not think she would,’ answered Sigismondo Parenzo. ‘And I’m quite sure that she won’t like to have her name coupled with his. Go on with your notes, my darling. If you think it best to speak to her, do so. Whatever you do will be right.’

  ‘I hope so, dear,’ answered Giuliana rather vaguely.

  Then she smiled at her husband again and went on writing.

  Maria was very far from guessing that
she was already so much talked of. She had lived so long in the pleasant security of a half-retirement from the world, and in the halo of semi-martyrdom created by Teresa Crescenzi’s original story, that she fancied herself unwatched and her behaviour uncriticised. She would certainly never have thought of connecting any change in Teresa’s disposition towards her with the fact that they had met in a lonely street after sunset, both wearing veils and telling each other that they had been to confession. She had not even taken the trouble to suspect that Teresa had not told the truth; still less had she guessed that Teresa was just then at a critical moment of her existence and was playing a very dangerous game in the hope of marrying Monsieur de Maurienne. Maria did not even know where he lived; and if she had ever bestowed a thought upon that, she would have supposed that he had rooms in the Embassy at the Palazzo Farnese.

  She was too happy now to think about indifferent people. She had seen Baldassare twice again before he had left, and each time it had seemed easier and more delightful to be with him. He had behaved perfectly, and had shown that he was in earnest and meant to lead the ideal life of innocent and loving intercourse which she had planned for herself and him. Between their meetings she had written him long and eloquent letters, breathing peace, and hope, and an undying love in a sphere far beyond this daily, earthly life. He had answered those letters by shorter ones that echoed them and promised all they asked. When he had come again he had stayed over an hour; when he came the last time he stayed almost all the afternoon, and Maria had boldly told Agostino that she was not at home for any one except the Marchesa di Parenzo. There was surely no harm in saying this, she thought, although she knew quite well that Giuliana and her husband were gone to Viterbo in a motor-car and would not return till late in the evening. She told herself that by some unforeseen accident they might come back sooner, and that Giuliana might appear about tea-time; and that it was therefore quite honest and truthful to tell Agostino that the Marchesa was to be admitted, if she came, well knowing that the chances were about ten thousand to one against anything so disagreeable. The improbable had happened twice lately — Maria had chanced to meet Castiglione at Saint Peter’s, and Teresa had chanced to meet him just after meeting her. Those were two coincidences, both of which had produced more important results than might have been anticipated; but it was not likely that there should be any more for a long time.