Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Maria had passed a wretched night. After the two guests had gone Montalto had come to her room and had poured out all his remorse for his mad conduct, entreating her over and over again to forgive him, not breaking down in tears, but overwhelming her with every assurance and proof of his almost insane love. It was late when he left her at last, but she could not sleep then. Every nerve in her body was quivering from the effort of self-control, her teeth were on edge, and when she closed her weary eyes she saw wheels of fire. She had gone to the chapel in her nightdress to say her prayers, heedless of the cold air and the icy marble pavement, and she had knelt there more than half an hour, trying to recover herself; not that she could think much of the words her lips silently formed, but because the solemn stillness helped her, and the restful certainty that nothing of what she had left behind could touch her there.

  She went back to her room, and after three o’clock she fell asleep from utter exhaustion, because she was really a very sound and normal woman, and the human machine had run down, like a clock. Men have slept in battle.

  Yet her natural elasticity was so great that in the morning, when she glanced at her face in the looking-glass, she saw that it hardly looked tired. There was only a slightly deeper shadow under her eyes to show that she had not slept enough, and that would soon go away, and she would be quite herself again.

  She had not dreamt that anything had happened to Leone, for she had been too worn out to dream at all, and she was a little ashamed of her presentiments and fears. The weather never affected her very much, but the sun was streaming into her room with the crisp morning air, and she had opened both windows wide to let out the stale odour of a cigarette her husband had smoked before he left her. The smell of his Havana cigarettes had always been intensely disagreeable to her, though she would not let him guess it, and this morning it seemed positively nauseous. There was the nasty little end of one of them, with some ashes, in a little silver dish which she emptied into the fireplace; then she blew into it, and poured some lavender water into it, and dried it out with a handkerchief before she rang for her maid.

  That was instinctive. She always did it when he had smoked in her room at night, and she was unconscious that it meant anything more than she had intended it to mean when she had done it for the first time, many months ago, on the morning after his return to Rome. But somehow the process had become symbolical, though she did not know that it had; it signified getting rid of the recollection of his presence.

  She asked her maid if Leone had gone to school yet, and was told that he and his tutor had left the house at the usual hour. The maid had heard the tutor ask a footman whether the Count was awake, and on learning that he had not rung for his valet, the tutor inquired whether any orders had been left about taking Leone to school. The Count had left none, the footman said, and went on with his work.

  Maria asked if the maid had heard any noises in the street or the square, or anything like rioting. The maid smiled. At that hour in the morning! How could her mistress think of such a thing?

  As if, because Rome is an old-fashioned city, street-fights could only take place decently, and at regular hours! But Maria felt reassured by the woman’s tone, and remembered how confidently her friend had spoken in the evening. One of her reasons for liking Giuliana so much was that she was so solidly sensible, and so sensibly good. Teresa Crescenzi had once said before a gay party in the old days that it was of no use to have Giuliana’s face and figure if you were going to be a monster of virtue, and when Maria had made a half-laughing retort Teresa had said that Maria did not look upon Giuliana as a necessity, nor as a luxury, but as a comfort; which was to some extent true; and Teresa had gone on to say it was a pure waste of good material that anybody who was so impeccably virtuous as the Marchesa should know how to dress so well; and every one had laughed.

  Maria had her tiny breakfast in her boudoir, tea and a slice of toast with an infinitesimal layer of butter, after the way of most southern people, and she felt better able to face the day than had seemed possible when she had fallen asleep after three o’clock. She had brought with her from Via San Martino the little service she had used during so many years, and the sight of it in the morning always revived the momentary illusion of freedom. Memory loves to play with toys — perhaps because it knows how to use the knife so well.

  The small meal occupied her longer than usual; she filled her cup a second time and took another little bit of toast. The hour had come when she usually went to say good morning to her husband in his study, but she had risen late, according to her own ideas, and the time had come too soon. But if she did not go to him, he would presently come to her to ask in a petulantly affectionate way whether she had forgotten him. To-day he would perhaps think that she had not quite forgiven him for yesterday’s scene, and there would be another. The thought chilled her, and she touched the button of the bell — a pretty button Giuliana had given her, made of a cat’s-eye set in a small block of Chinese jade that lay on the corner of the table. The maid came to take away the things.

  ‘Is the Count in his study?’ inquired Maria. ‘Please ask.’

  But the maid knew that he had not rung for his man, and was probably still asleep; for a person who had applied for the vacant place of steward was waiting in the ante-chamber, though he had come at ten o’clock, by appointment, to be interviewed by the Count. In fact, the valet had suggested to the maid that she might ask her mistress whether it would not be better to wake his Excellency, as it was so late, and he did not like to oversleep himself.

  ‘Not yet,’ answered the Countess. ‘Let him sleep half an hour longer.’

  But she was surprised to learn how late it was, and glanced at her old travelling clock; Montalto now and then stayed in bed till nearly eleven, however, and she was glad to be alone some time longer. As he had given an appointment to a man of business, whom he would certainly see as soon as he was ready, it was quite possible that she might be left to herself till luncheon time. There were a number of little things she wished to do, and she began to occupy herself with them. Though it was the fourteenth of January she had not yet changed the calendar cards for the year in the shabby little silver stand she had used so long. The new ones needed clipping, in order to fit the old-fashioned frame that had been made for a sort no longer to be had. The note-paper in the upright case on the writing-table was almost finished too, and she replenished it from a closet in her dressing-room. She was used to doing all such things for herself, and kept her own stock of writing materials in neat order.

  These and other small matters occupied her for some time. She was fitting a new piece of pencil into her sliding pencil-case when loud shouts from the square made her turn her head towards the window. Then two pistol shots followed, and there was a moment’s silence. She dropped the pencil and ran to the window, and as she reached it the savage shouting rang again through the square. She saw fifty or sixty men fighting each other, their sticks flourishing, their hats flying in all directions, their arms and legs struggling confusedly. Instantly she thought of Leone. Giuliana had said there were never any disturbances till late in the afternoon, and her maid had smiled at the mere idea that anything of the kind could happen before noon; yet there was fighting going on already, under her window. She strained her eyes to find her boy and his tall tutor in the crowd, and opened the window to see more clearly. They were not in sight — of course not! Leone was at school, and the tutor was at the public library, where he spent his mornings in study. But they must come home for luncheon, all the way from the Istituto Massimo, near the station, down to the heart of Rome; and they might be caught in a fight anywhere. She was certain that the tutor was a coward.

  Something must be done at once to get the boy home in safety. She would telephone to the school that he was to wait there, and she would go for him herself. She was quite sure she could protect him much better than any man could. Who would attack a lady in her carriage? Leone should sit at her feet in the bottom of the broug
ham, in case a stone should break one of the windows. She could trust old Telemaco, her own coachman, for she had seen him in trouble with vicious horses, and he was cool and resolute; a man who is not afraid of a horse is generally fairly courageous in other ways.

  She would tell her husband what she was going to do. No — he was still asleep. Yet it might be better to wake him — it was so late. Probably he would insist on fetching Leone himself, but she would go with him; perhaps he would be angry if she went alone. The first thing was to telephone.

  The instrument was in the broad passage upon which the doors of Montalto’s bedroom and dressing-room opened. They were double doors, practically soundproof, and it was not likely that her voice at the telephone should wake him. She rang, and asked for the Istituto Massimo, and after waiting some time she was in communication with the porter of the school. He told her that it was closed, owing to the disturbances.

  Her heart stopped, and then beat quickly. With difficulty she asked if Leone and his tutor had been seen. Yes, they had come at the usual time, like many other boys whose parents had not seen the notice in the papers. The notice had been inserted in all the principal evening ones yesterday. The ‘little Count,’ as the porter called the boy, had gone away again with the tutor. That was at half-past eight. There had been very little disturbance in that quarter of the city as yet. The porter could tell her nothing more.

  Half-past eight, and it was now nearly eleven! Maria felt dizzy, and held her hand upon the telephone after she had rung off the communication. Her husband’s bedroom door was just opposite her, and she knew that she must call him now. He would not forgive her if she did not, and he would be right.

  She tapped upon the panel rather sharply. No answer. She knocked much louder, but no sound came, though she felt a little pain in her knuckles. The double door was well made. Rather timidly she tried it, and found it locked. She had never entered Montalto’s room since he had come back, and she wondered whether there were any means of waking him, but his valet must know this, and there was no time to be lost. The man always waited in a little room further down the passage, where he cleaned his master’s things, and where the bedroom bell rang. It was there that the maid always found him when Maria wished her husband to receive any message from her immediately on waking. She went forward a few steps, not remembering which was the door, and she called the servant. He came out directly, in evident surprise.

  ‘We must wake my husband,’ she said. ‘I must speak to him at once; but I have knocked and tried the door, and he does not answer. Is there any way of reaching him?’

  The servant produced a key from his pocket.

  ‘His Excellency fastens the bedroom door inside, and I lock the dressing-room. The door between the rooms is never locked.’

  ‘Go in and wake your master gently — he may be nervous and tired. Tell him I wish to speak to him.’

  The man obeyed, and Maria waited on the threshold of the dressing-room. The smell of stale Havana cigarettes which she so much detested had met her as the door opened. The sun was shining in, for the valet had already opened the blinds, lighted the fire, prepared the tub, and laid out the clothes. He pushed the bedroom door on its hinges without noise and entered in the dark to open the window. Maria waited, and her eyes fell upon a faded photograph of herself, taken soon after she had been married. It stood in a gilt frame on the dressing-table on one side of the mirror. On the other was one of Montalto’s mother, in court dress, with her coronet. The frame was black and there was a white cross upon the lower edge.

  While Maria was looking at these things she unconsciously listened as the valet softly called his master, softly at first, then louder — then a third time, with a kind of frightened cry. But there was no answer, and Maria pressed her hand to her heart in sudden terror. The man appeared at the door with white face and starting eyes, but he could not speak, and an instant later Maria rushed past him into the bedroom. The servant’s terrified cry, his livid face, his speechless horror, all told her that her husband must be dead.

  She was at the bedside now, bending down and calling him, softly at first, then louder, for he was breathing heavily; but he did not hear, he did not even stir. Maria did not cry out, for she was not frightened now; only she did not understand. The valet was beside her, pale and scared.

  ‘He sleeps very heavily,’ she said, lowering her voice instinctively, but without the least tremor. ‘Have you ever seen him sleep like this?’

  The servant looked at her strangely, and his words broke out, loud and sudden.

  ‘Excellency — don’t you see? It is an apoplexy! I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘An apoplexy!’

  She repeated the word slowly with a wondering horror, and drew back from the bedside, gazing at the dark, unconscious, upturned face, the dreadful, half-opened eyes, the knotted arteries and veins at the temple that was towards her.

  ‘It came in his sleep,’ the servant said, in an awed tone.

  ‘Yes.’ Maria was recovering her senses. Telephone for the doctor at once. Tell him what has happened. I will stay here.’

  The man went out, still much more frightened than she was, for there is nothing, not death itself, which the Italians of the lower classes dread so much as apoplexy.

  Maria smoothed the unconscious and paralysed man’s pillow, and drew the bed-clothes up under his pointed grey beard, for the room was cold. That was all she could do, and when she had done it she stood upright, with folded hands, looking steadily at the dark and congested face.

  Little as she knew of such things, she had heard that apoplexy was often brought on by violent fits of anger and other great emotions, and the long habit of self-accusation made her ask her conscience whether the terrible catastrophe had not come through her fault. In some way it must be so, she was sure, with all that was to follow. People often recovered, even from a bad stroke, far enough to drag on a wretched existence for years, half paralysed, half speechless, or altogether both, but fully conscious. She would take care of him faithfully; better that than — she checked the mere thought. It was worse to be freed thus, by the suffering he was to bear, than to fear the sound of his step, to dread his touch, to feel her flesh creep at his caress. It must be worse. She must make herself understand that it was. What was all her expiation worth if she was so inhumanly cruel as to think of her own bodily freedom now? She had prayed for strength to bear, not for liberation from the terrible bond of wifehood. Was this God’s answer? Never! This was fate, sudden, awful, leaping into her life to make her think evil against her will, to cut short the punishment she should have borne patiently for many years to come. She had not suffered enough yet, not half enough!

  With some confused thought of imposing a duty on herself, she bent down and kissed her husband’s forehead. At the same moment the servant came back, and when she stood up again he was beside her. The doctor would come at once, he said, but he would have to walk, as no carriage was safe in the streets.

  For a few moments she had forgotten Leone, out in the city, somewhere, with his tutor, and at the thought, with her eyes fixed on her husband’s senseless form, she felt that she might go mad. Could she leave him now, without a doctor, without a nurse? Might he not wake, suddenly conscious for an instant, to die calling for her? She knew nothing definite about such things, but she vaguely remembered hearing that dying people sometimes revived for a few moments before the end.

  Yet, if she did not leave him, who would find Leone? For she was sure she could find her boy, and she only, somewhere in Rome, and protect him and bring him home. Of all she had suffered in her suffering life those moments were the worst. She spoke to the servant in sheer desperation, to hear her own voice.

  ‘Can we do nothing till the doctor comes?’ she asked. ‘Do you know of anything that ought to be done?’

  But the man was at a loss. He spoke confusedly of leeches, ice, and mustard plasters. Then he remembered that there was a chemist’s shop at the corner of the square; there m
ight be a doctor there, or some one who knew what to do. When people were hurt or had a sunstroke in the street they were always carried to the chemist’s, unless there were a regular ambulance-station near.

  Maria grasped at the idea and sent him instantly, and she was again alone by the bedside. But she could not think now; since fear for the child had taken possession of her, there was not room for anything else. She stood motionless for more than five minutes, not even noticing the sound of low voices at the outer door of the next room; for the servant had told the footman in the hall what had happened as he hurried out on his errand, and the whole household had soon gathered in the passage.

  Then Maria felt that some one was beside her, and she looked up and saw a young man with a grave, fair face, who bent over the bed without so much as speaking.

  ‘It is a severe stroke of apoplexy,’ he said, standing upright again and looking at her. ‘You must send for ice at once.’

  ‘There is an ice-box in the house,’ said the valet, who had entered the room with the young doctor, and he went away quickly to procure what was needed.

  ‘Will he be conscious again?’ Maria asked in a low voice.

  ‘Perhaps, but probably not for two or three days.’

  ‘Can I be of any use? Do you need me here? We have telephoned for our doctor.’

  The young man looked at her in some surprise.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will do what can be done, if you prefer to leave the room.’