Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘But what can I sing?’ he asked.

  ‘“Lord have mercy on us!”’ answered Ortensia, almost laughing. ‘That must be the meaning of the song, at all events.’

  ‘A miserere?’ Stradella was surprised at the suggestion, for old men do not usually like dirges.

  ‘No, sweetheart, I did not mean that! It must not be in Latin, but in Italian, an appeal from you, as a man who has committed a fault, to the Pope, as a sovereign, who has power to forgive it if he will.’

  ‘Do you mean that I am to compose the words and the music between now and sunset?’ asked the musician, somewhat startled.

  ‘Why not? Did you not compose the greatest love song you ever wrote in a few hours, and for me? What is the use of being a man of genius, my beloved? Just for that, and nothing else!’

  ‘But I am not a man of genius! And I have spent the night in prison!’

  ‘You look as fresh as a May morning!’ laughed Ortensia. ‘Whereas I am all bedraggled, and scratched, and dishevelled, and everything I should not be.’

  ‘I dressed while you were sleeping,’ answered Stradella. ‘There was plenty of time!’

  ‘Do you mean to say that you had the inhuman cruelty not to wake me the instant you came home? And you pretend to love me! I shall never believe you again. But that only proves that you are a man of genius, as I said — you have not half a heart amongst you, you great artists! But I will have my revenge, for I shall go to my own room, and shut myself up and make myself fit to be seen, while you compose your song!’

  ‘And who will dress your beautiful hair now that Pina has run away?’ laughed Stradella.

  ‘I will. And if I cannot, a certain man of genius, called Alessandro Stradella, may try his hand at it!’

  She ran away laughing, but he caught her before she reached her own door, and though she struggled, he kissed her on her neck, just where the red-gold ringlets grew, low down behind her little ear. They behaved like a pair of runaway lovers, as they were.

  But when he was alone his face grew grave and thoughtful, for he knew there was great danger still. He had been sent home under a guard, a prisoner still, and there were sentinels outside both doors of the apartment, who would be relieved at intervals all day, till the time came for him to be taken to the Quirinal. He might have been somewhat reassured if he had known that Don Alberto himself was also under arrest in his bedroom, by the Cardinal’s orders; and he might have felt some satisfaction if he could have seen his enemy’s injured nose, swollen to an unnatural size and covered with sticking-plaster, and if he could have also realised that it still hurt quite dreadfully; but, on the other hand, these latter palliative circumstances were likely to make the real trouble even worse, since that same nose was not to be classed with common noses, but as a nasus nepotis Pontificis, that is, nepotic, belonging to a Pope’s nephew, and therefore quasi-pontifical, and not to be pulled, struck, or otherwise maltreated with impunity.

  Nevertheless, Stradella forgot all about the injured feature and its possessor in a few minutes, when he had tuned his lute and was sitting by the table with a sheet of music and a pen at his elbow, for he thought aloud in soft sounds that often ceased at first and then began again, but little by little linked themselves together in a melody that has not perished to this day; and with the music the words came, touchingly simple, but heart-felt as an angel’s tears.

  Ortensia heard his voice through the door, and listened, half dressed, with a happy smile; for she knew the moods of his genius better than he knew them himself, and she understood that the song he was weaving with voice and lute would be worthy of him, as it is; for in the growth of music, the fine art, his masterpiece of oratorio are left behind and forgotten, being too thin and primitive for an age that began with Beethoven and ended in Richard Wagner; but his songs have not lost their hold on those simpler natures that are still responsive to a melody and vibrate to a perfect human voice.

  It was late in the afternoon when Stradella had finished his work, and the last note and rest of ‘Pietà Signore’ were written down. The two had dined on the supper which Pina and Cucurullo had prepared for them on the previous evening, and in the warm hours Ortensia had fallen asleep again for a little while, still listening to the song and hearing it in her dreams. But when Stradella was sure that nothing more was to be changed, she opened her eyes wide and got up; and she came and knelt at his knees as she had done on that last night in the balcony of the old inn; and then he sang what he had composed, from first to last, in a voice that just filled her ears when it was loudest, and still echoed in her heart when it sank to a mere breath. When he was silent at last there were tears in her eyes, and she kissed his hand as it lay passive on the silent strings of the lute, while he bent down over her and his lips touched her hair.

  They had not much time left after that, as it seemed to them, when they remembered it all and looked back on one of the happiest days in their young lives. The last time they kissed was when they were ready to go downstairs to the carriage that was waiting to take them to the Quirinal. Strange to say, Stradella felt a little faint then, and his heart was beating almost painfully, whereas Ortensia was quite calm and confident, and smiled at the two sbirri in black who were ready on the landing to escort the prisoners to the Cardinal’s presence.

  They were there at last, in a spacious room where everything was either white, or gilded, or of gold, the walls, the furniture, the big fireplace, the heavy carpet spread on the marble floor, where the Pope sat in his gilded chair, himself all in white, with a small white silk skullcap set far back on his silvery hair. His face was almost white, too, and the short beard on his chin was like snow, for he was over eighty years of age, thin, and in ill-health; but the face was kindly, with soft dark eyes that still had life in them; and the shadow of a smile flickered round the faded lips as Stradella and Ortensia knelt together at his feet.

  On his left side stood Cardinal Altieri, erect and motionless in his purple cassock with red buttons, and his scarlet silk cloak. His face was grave and inscrutable.

  ‘Holy Father,’ he had said, as the pair knelt down, ‘these are the prisoners who implore your pardon.’

  That was all he said, and for some moments the Pope did not speak, though he nodded his snowy head twice, in answer to the Cardinal’s words, and his gentle eyes looked from the one young face to the other as if reading the meaning of each.

  ‘You sang to me a year ago, my son,’ he said at length to Stradella. ‘Go now and stand a little way off and make music, for though I am old I hear well; and do your best, for I will be your judge. If I find you have even greater mastery than last year, your skill shall atone for your rude handling of my nephew; but if you sing less well, you must have an opportunity of practising and perfecting your art in solitude for a few months.’

  If Stradella had dared to glance at the kindly face just then, he would certainly have noticed how the dark eyes brightened, and almost twinkled. But Ortensia, being a woman, and still full of girlhood’s innocent daring, was boldly looking up at the Pope while he spoke; and he smiled at her, and one shadowy hand went out and rested on the black veil she had pinned upon her hair.

  ‘Go and stand near your husband while he sings to me,’ he said. ‘You will give him courage, I am sure!’

  The two rose together, and Stradella took up the lute he had laid beside him on the floor when he had knelt down at the Pope’s feet. He and Ortensia stepped back half-a-dozen paces, and the musician stood still, but Ortensia moved a little farther away and to one side. The windows were wide open to the west, and the rich evening light flooded the white and gold room, and illumined the figure of the aged Pope, the strong features of the tall grey-haired Cardinal beside him, and the two young faces of the singer and his wife.

  Stradella’s heart beat fast and faintly, and his fingers trembled when they touched the strings and made the first minor chord. As long as he lived he remembered how at that very moment two swallows shot by the open window, utt
ering their eager little note; the room swam with him, and he thought he was going to reel and fall. For a moment he saw nothing and knew nothing, except that he had reached the end of the short prelude on the lute, and that he must find voice to sing for his liberty and Ortensia’s, if not for his life.

  ‘Pietà, Signore — —’

  The first words broke from his chilled lips in a low cry of despair, so strange and moving, and yet so musical, that the Cardinal started visibly, and the Pope raised his white head and looked slowly down the room, as if some suffering creature must be there at the very point of death, and crying low for pity and forgiveness. Even Ortensia, who had heard all, could not believe her ears, though she knew her husband’s genius well.

  ‘Signor pietà — —’ he sang again.

  Fear was gone now, but art poured out the appeal for pardon with supreme power to move, roused to outdo itself, perhaps, by that first piteous cry that had broken from the master-singer’s lips. The plaintive notes floated on the golden air as if a culprit spirit were pleading for forgiveness at the gates of paradise, a wonder to hear.

  Ortensia held her breath, her eyes fixed on the aged Pontiff’s rapt face; for he was gazing at the singer while he listened to a strain such as he had never heard in all his eighty years of life; and his kind old eyes were dewy with compassion.

  The last note lingered on the air and died away, and there was silence in the great room while one might have counted ten. Then the shadowy white hand was slowly stretched out in a beckoning gesture, and the Pope spoke.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘you are forgiven.’

  They came and knelt at his feet again, and he, leaning forward in his great chair, bent his head towards them.

  ‘You were pardoned in my heart already, my son,’ he said to Stradella, ‘for I have been told the truth, and the provocation you suffered was great. Go free, and fear nothing, for while you dwell under our care in Rome you shall be as safe as I who speak to you. Go free, and use the great gift you have received from heaven to raise men’s hearts heavenwards, as you have raised mine to-day.’

  He gave his hand to Stradella and then to Ortensia, and they kissed the great ring with devout gratitude, deeply touched by his words. Then he spoke again, and still more kindly.

  ‘Will you ask anything of me before you go?’

  ‘Your blessing on us, as man and wife, Holy Father,’ Stradella answered.

  ‘Most willingly, my children.’

  With fatherly tenderness he joined their right hands under his left, and then, lifting his right above their bowed heads, and looking up, he blessed them very solemnly.

  I shall tell no more, but leave the singer and his young wife to their happiness. If any one would know the end that followed years afterwards, he will find it in chronicles that are in almost every great library. I shall only say that while those two lived they loved, as few have, and that Stradella’s fame was greater when he breathed his last than it had ever been before; and in Italy he is not forgotten yet.

  But whether Trombin and Gambardella will ever stroll into the story-teller’s dreamland again, and act other parts, he himself cannot surely tell, nor does he know whether they will be welcome if they come. Their names are not in the chronicles, as Stradella’s and Ortensia’s are, as well as Pignaver’s. The Venetian nobleman ‘sent certain assassins,’ and that is all we know; and as for the names and faces and figures I have given to the Bravi, I found them beyond the borders of truth in the delicious Gardens of Irresponsibility, where many strange people dwell together, who might be real, and may be alive some day, but who have not yet made up their minds to exchange the flowery paths of fiction for the stony roads and dusty lanes of this working-day world.

  The Undesirable Governess

  Crawford spent very little time in America during the last few years of his life, instead choosing to reside primarily in Italy. In 1906 his health deteriorated and he would never truly recover or experience anything approaching good health again, even though he continued to travel and work. He began writing his last novel in the autumn of 1907 and completed it in early May 1908. Between July and October 1909, The Undesirable Governess was published in serial form in The Pall Mall Magazine — a monthly literary publication that featured the work of prominent illustrators of the time, including George Marrow and Edward Joseph Sullivan, as well as famous authors such as Jack London and Joseph Conrad. The novel was first published in book format by Macmillan & Co. in London and New York in April 1910, a year after Crawford had died of a heart attack on the morning of Good Friday, 1909, in Sorrento.

  The Undesirable Governess focuses on a twenty-three-year-old woman, Ellen Scott, who takes the position of governess in the Follitt family. Lady Follitt has dismissed many governesses in the past as her husband likes to sexually harass attractive young women. Ellen has a romantic history with one of the Follitt’s adult sons, Lionel and wishes to acquire the governess position to be close to him again and win the favour of his parents so they grant permission for them to marry. She assumes a limp and adds blemishes to her skin in order to appear unattractive and therefore be appointed by Lady Follitt. The romantic plot intertwines with a sub-plot involving a hot air balloon flight, taken by Jocelyn (a son of the Follitt’s) and his friends, which results in them encountering a mysterious man from Ellen’s past.

  The first edition of the novel

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  Crawford in later years

  CHAPTER I

  “BY-THE-BYE,” BEGAN COLONEL Follitt, looking at his wife across the tea-things, “have you done anything about getting a governess?”

  “No,” answered Lady Jane, and a short pause followed, for the subject was a sore one. “I have not done anything about getting a governess,” she added presently, in the tone suitable to armed neutrality.

  “Oh!” ejaculated the Colonel.

  Aware that it would be hardly possible to find fault with the monosyllable, he slowly stirred his tea. He took it sweet, with cream, for in spite of a fairly successful military career and a well-developed taste for sport, he was a mild man. He was also a ladies’ man, and preferred feminine society, even in his own home, to that of fellow-sportsmen and former brother officers. Lady Jane had, indeed, no other fault to find with him; but this one sometimes constituted a serious grievance.

  “You talk,” said Lady Jane presently, “as if the matter was urgent.”

  “I said ‘oh,’” answered her husband mildly.

  “Precisely,” retorted the lady; “but I know very well what you meant.”

  “If I meant anything, I meant that those two girls are all over the place and need some one to look after them.”

  “I really think I’m able to take care of them myself for a few days,” answered Lady Jane stiffly.

  “No doubt, no doubt. But, all the same, I caught them potting rooks in the park this morning with my best gun; and Barker tells me that yesterday, when the men were at dinner, they managed to get Schoolboy and Charley’s Aunt out of the stables on the sly and rode races bareback in the paddock, till he came back. I don’t know why they did not break their necks.”

  Lady Jane did not seem much moved by this intelligence, for the Follitts were a sporting family, and she had been used to their ways for a quarter of a century.

  “I will speak to them,” she said, as if that would insure their necks.

  At this point their eldest son came in quietly and sat down half-way between his father and mother. Colonel Follitt was a well-set-up, tough-looking man, who looked younger than his age and dressed just a little younger than he looked. There were a few lines in his face, his well-trimmed moustache was only just beginning to turn grey, and he had the eyes of a boy. His wife was neither fair nor dark, and quite as well-preserved as he, b
esides having the advantage of being ten years younger. But the eldest son of this good-looking couple seemed prematurely old. He was tall, thin, and dark, and had the general air and cut of a student. He could ride, because all the Follitts rode, and he shot as well as the average man who is asked to fill a place for a couple of days with an average shooting-party; but he much preferred Sanskrit to horses, and the Upanishads to a day on the moors. From sheer love of study he had passed for the Indian Civil Service after taking his degree; but instead of taking an appointment he had plunged into the dark sea of Sanskrit literature, and was apparently as much at home in that element as a young salmon in his native stream. His father mildly said that the only thing that might have made him seem human would have been a little of the family susceptibility to feminine charm. But though he was heir to a good estate, he had not yet shown the least inclination to marry, and pretty governesses came and went unnoticed by him. Like most students, he was very fond of his home, but he made frequent journeys to London at all times of the year for the purpose of making researches in the British Museum. Even the most careful mother could feel little or no anxiety about such a son, and Lady Jane, for reasons of her own, sometimes wished that his brothers would take up their quarters in the neighbourhood of the British Museum for six months at a time.

  She gave him his tea now, just as he liked it, and a long silence followed. He sat quite still, looking into his cup with the air of pleasant but melancholy satisfaction peculiar to students who have just left their books.