by Ann Bridge
“Amazingly. She is wonderful,” the Russian said listlessly, walking up and down the room.
“She is not so strong as she looks. Things worry her now—one has to ménager her,” Suzy said.
“I suppose I worry her—my affairs, at least,” the Russian said, stopping in front of her.
“Naturally, dear Nadia, she is sorry that you are unhappy,” Suzy said, in her warm caressing voice. “We all are. You know that.”
Nadia slid her bracelets up and down her delicate arms. “That is the humiliation—everyone knowing, and being sorry for one!” she said bitterly. “However, I suppose she wants to talk to me about it?”
“Of course,” Suzy said. “And Nadia, she is worth listening to. She has lived a long time, and she was always a woman of intelligence.”
“Sicuro! And not of emotions! Well, I will listen to her, Suzy. But I warn you, I do not think that it will be any good. He will not give up this creature —he is toqué about her,” Nadia said.
“Pazienza, cara,” Suzy said, rising and putting her arms round the beautiful creature—she was always moved by beauty. “See—listen to her, listen gently, will you? She is not strong. And after, you and I will talk. There must be a way. I think Pipo is being most tiresome, but we must give him time. Time does wonders.”
“Will Time make him love me again? For nothing is any good but that. Nothing, I tell you!” Nadia said passionately. Then her eyes filled with tears; “Oh Suzy, I am so miserable,” she said, and put her head down on her sister-in-law’s shoulder, and wept.
The old Marchesa’s talk with Nadia took place next morning in the former’s sitting-room, before she went downstairs. This was by Suzy’s wise arrangement. She realised that both were dreading the interview, and decided that it would upset the old woman least in the morning, when she had most strength, and would give her longer to get over it before night, and a better chance to sleep. La Vecchia Marchesa was sitting, fully dressed, in one of the upright chairs she preferred when her daughter-in-law came in—after the usual greetings she motioned her to another chair and said, without any beating about the bush: “Now, my dear, let us have a talk about Pipo.”
“Yes, Marchesa. I shall be glad of your advice,” Nadia said dutifully.
“That is well—usually advice is more easily given than taken,” the old lady said. “Well, I have had your letters, Nadia, and I think I understand the situation. Pipo does not want to give up this liaison at present, I take it?”
The Russian bowed her head in assent.
“But when you are together in Bologna he behaves well— accompanies you everywhere, is properly attentive?”
“Yes— but all that is such a mockery,” Nadia said, lifting her head and looking now at the old woman.
“A very useful mockery,” the old Marchesa said drily. “Very well, my dear, then it seems to me that the only thing for you to do is to have patience. These affairs do not last.”
“Marchesa, I cannot! I have been patient for a whole year, and I am à bout,” the younger woman said, with a sort of weary desperation.
The old Marchesa stretched out one of her fine frail hands and put it on the other’s knee. “Nadia, will you listen to me?” she said. “You may as well, since you have come all this way to see me,” she added, with a little laugh. And as the Russian again bent her head in assent with a slow grave gesture, she went on—“Figlia mia, I think you are looking at this thing in the wrong way. You think it more important than it is. All men, or nearly all, do this from time to time —many women do it too. But the point is that it does not really matter.”
“Not matter? That one’s husband ceases to love one, gives all his thought elsewhere—this does not matter?” Nadia said, still slowly, still quietly.
“No—it doesn’t—not for our purpose, ’the old Marchesa said firmly. “We are talking of your marriage, Nadia. Marriage is one thing—love is another. They may exist together, but that is a happy accident. Love does not last, not often; marriage does. What matters is that one’s marriage should be conducted with courtesy, with amiability—ma, con decenza! That is of importance. Listen,” she went on, as she saw the younger woman move her head restlessly in negation—“I am old enough, now, to speak freely to you about the past. I have had lovers myself—three I At the time, with each, it seemed so very important, his love and mine! And now, at the best I remember them with a little pleasure—of one, I can no longer recollect even his name! It passes—it all passes,” the old woman said, in a tone suddenly gone dreamy. The Marchesa Nadia, her interest aroused by this surprising recital, watched her with curiosity —she saw the old dark eyes look far far away, as if into immense distances, and then slowly close.
Only for a moment, however. Then she opened them again, and said, in tones of surprising firmness: “But my family, my children and my grandchildren, my whole life— these are with me still, I who am nearly a hundred! And they are still of value and importance, those things. Even now when I see clearly how little so many things matter, my family’s good name is of importance to me still. And let me tell you that in the days when those other things seemed important, I made sacrifices to preserve it!”
“Did you, Bonne-Mama?” the Marchesa Nadia said, with more affection than she had yet shown.
“Yes, my child, I did. Ah, there was one—I would gladly have spent the rest of my life with him, then! He’s gone— they are all gone. But I did not, and I am glad that I did not.”
“You parted?” Nadia asked.
“Si, we parted. Oh, that was in eighteen thirty-five—the year Mazzini published his first book, the Fede ed Avvenire. How wild we all thought him, then!” Again her eyes looked back into great distances, and the younger woman realised, with awe, that she was watching the face of a lover of seventy years ago.
“But now, my child, as to your troubles,” the old lady resumed briskly. “It may be that this affair of Pipo’s will pass. I think so, myself. They are not really volage, the Vill’ Altas—they have a strong family sense. But even if you do not regain his love—and that seldom happens—his friendship and his companionship and his respect you can keep, if you will be sensible.”
“What do you think I should do, then?” Nadia asked.
“Be patient. Keep quiet. Be amiable, when he is with you,” the old lady replied unhesitatingly.
“Let this go on? Make no protest?”
“You have protested, have you not? And has it done any good?” the old woman asked. And as the Russian again made her beautiful weary gesture of agreement—”Of course not,” the old Marchesa went on. “It never does. You would have done far better to ignore the whole thing.”
“But that would be such utter hypocrisy,” the young woman protested. “I could not live a lie to him, when he once loved me.”
“You call it hypocrisy—I call it commonsense,” the old lady retorted. “What is your own idea?”
“I thought we might separate,” the Russian said. “At least, then, I should not be in his house, be with him—always reminded of what is gone!” she said, in a low tone.
“And will that bring him back to you, to separate? Nadia, this is utter folly,” the old woman said. “You will make a scandal, destroy your marriage, and injure the child’s prospects—and for nothing! That will not help you in the least. No—do as I say—be patient, be cheerful, be a little indifferent. Know as little about it as you can. Above all, say nothing more. I will write to Pipo myself, and tell him to be prudent, considerate—there need be no scandal. Will you do this?”
Nadia sat looking at her hands, which lay, so detached, in her lap. At length, without raising her eyes, she said— “I will consider it, Marchesa. And I am grateful to you for all the trouble you have taken.”
“If you take my advice, when it is all over you will be grateful for it,” the old woman said, as the other rose. “Ring for Giacinta, will you, my dear? I want my egg-nog.”
Chapter Eight
“Well, how did it go?”
Suzy said to La Vecchia Marchesa before lunch, when the old lady, fortified by her egg-nog, had installed herself on the terrace.
“She was at least quite quiet,” the old Marchesa replied. “That was something to be thankful for. She said she would think it over. But she is full of most strange ideas—when I asked her if Pipo was attentive, ma, behaved properly, when he is at home with her, she said that it was hypocrisy that he should do so!”
“Poor Nadia!” Suzy said, with a little sigh.
“We I think are also to be pitied,” La Vecchia said, “to have anyone so unreasonable in the family.”
“Ah, Bonne-Mama, you must not be too hard on her. Her ideas of marriage are quite different to ours,” Suzy said. “I am half American, so I understand all that—Americans think the same about these things.”
The old lady gave her a shrewd ook. “Well, my dear Suzy, your americanismo has not prevented you from fitting very satisfactorily into our Italian way of living,” she said; “and very acceptably,” she added, with a little smile. “Anyhow, since you understand her, pray talk to her yourself. I am not confident that I have accomplished much.”
The Marchesa Suzy tackled her mission that afternoon. After the siesta, when it was cool, she suggested a stroll to her sister-in-law—she had sent Marietta and Miss Prestwich to lunch at Odredo, to be out of the way, with a little note to the Count telling him not to call that day. “You will not be wanted, caro.” The two ladies, armed with parasols, strolled gently along the ridge towards Odredo. Some distance along it a little path led off down the slope to a wooden seat, thickly screened behind by a group of arbutus, which commanded the full splendour of the northern view—on this Suzy seated herself, inviting the Marchesa Nadia to do the same. Nadia however dropped onto the dry grass at her feet. They made a pretty group, sitting there, in their flowing pale dresses and graceful attitudes, the dark woman and the fair one—an almost Watteau-like picture of pastoral fashion and perfect tranquillity. The tranquillity however was only apparent.
“Well, so you had your talk with Bonne-Mama,” Suzy began, lighting one of her little cigarettes. “How did it go?”
Nadia threw off her broad-brimmed hat onto the grass beside her, dropped her hands into her lap, and sat staring in front of her for a little before she answered. Suzy watched her with a certain anxiety. What was going on inside that shapely dark head? And how extraordinary, she thought, that anyone with so much beauty—for really she was quite lovely today—should suffer on a man’s account. That face seemed made to impose suffering, not to bear it.
“La Vecchia was—touching,” Nadia said at last; “she actually told me about her own lovers, Suzy.” She turned her head and looked at the other woman. “It made me wish that I could do what she wants. But it is no good—I can’t. I can’t,” she repeated, in a tone of weary finality.
“Why not, Nadia cara?” Suzy asked kindly.
“Because to me it is all so hopeless,” Nadia said. “La Vecchia considers that if Pipo is attentive and polite to me, and respects the convenances, and we preserve the appearance of a good marriage, that is sufficiently satisfactory. But to me this is quite horrible, to lie and pretend about it, when there is no love—or no love on one side,” she added, in a lower tone. “To live with someone as if you both loved, when there is indifference only, and despair, and hatred—it is abominable! It is not marriage! I will not do it. It is better to separate. Then he can have what he wants—” her tone was of an incredible bitterness—“and I—well, in time I may find peace, alone.”
“This is a grave decision, Nadia,” Suzy said. “One should think well before doing such a thing.”
“I have thought. Dio mio, do you think it has been an easy choice, to give up all the—the love, the hopes, of so many years?” she said, turning her brilliant eyes, swimming in tears, to her sister-in-law. “But I have decided— I cannot change.”
“Even if he gave her up?”
“He will not. And if he did, how do I know that he would ever care for me again? I might wait, as La Vecchia says, and we might seem reconciled, and afterwards it might begin again. That would be the last humiliation. No —it must end now. Cela me déchire. I can’t sleep,” she said, in a flat tone of helplessness.
“And the child? Have you thought of Francesca?”
“Thought? Yes! But she can only be injured by living in the infection of such misery. She sees, even now! She asks where her Father is,” Nadia said passionately. “She asks why I am sad! Is that good for a child?”
One of Suzy’s great gifts was that she could always recognise a fact, and that quickly. She saw on this occasion that there was nothing to be done with her sister-in-law along the lines of argument. Even La Vecchia Marchesa would have to admit defeat this time. The only hope would be to mobilise Pipo—he, if he were willing to break with the Panelli, and brought the lever of passion into play, might avoid a breach; otherwise, she said to herself philosophically, they were helpless. Nadia was a Slav, and could not be dealt with on ordinary Italian lines.
The trouble of course about all these discussions between the Marchesa Nadia and her husband’s relations was that they were actually talking about two different conventions of marriage. Nadia, brought up by an English governess in one of the nicest of the old-fashioned Russian country families, held it as axiomatic (as indeed it is generally held in England) that the only respect-worthy basis for marriage is not suitability, or general and private convenience, or a high probability of a comfortable union, but romantic love. The Vill’ Altas took a quite different view. In the society in which they moved, marriages of convenience, though becoming less frequent, still often occurred; and even where the marriage was a matter of choice between the young people themselves, they regarded it, once made, as not wholly their own affair—they accepted unquestioningly the claim of their relations that every marriage in a family was to some extent the whole family’s concern; they recognised a certain responsibility, not only to one another, but to their whole circle of relatives.
Now the disadvantage of the English convention of marriage is that it puts a premium on personal feelings. If these alter, the stability of the marriage is threatened; its accepted basis, romantic love, has failed, and the unhappy participants are almost bound in consequence to regard the whole venture as a failure. They are probably wrong—looked at biologically, or as a part of the social structure, the marriage is very likely perfectly adequate or even an undoubted success; an Italian wife, bred up in a saner and more practical theory, would complacently regard it as such, and be a better and a more cheerful wife in consequence.
For it is women who suffer most from this conception, and the worst of this over-personalisation of the married state is that it cuts its own throat. The woman who measures the success or failure of her marriage primarily by the state of her husband’s affections is seldom wholly at ease—she is, far too often, secretly taking the temperature of his feelings; the small rubs and checks and difficulties of married life take on a wholly false importance. And the moment that he shows signs of being attracted by someone else, the fat is fairly in the fire. Instead of accepting it as a tiresome, perhaps a most painful, but a very fairly normal state of affairs, which must be left, with patience and good-temper, to run its course, and by no m$$$$$$$$ be allowed to endanger that far more important thing, the marriage itself, she is apt to feel that the foundation of the whole business has gone by the board—and in addition, to suffer the pangs of a quite needless personal humiliation.
Now from these particular distresses the Italian conception of marriage set the woman free. She knew that she had to do her job; bear children, be amiable to her husband and polite to relations. But because she never thought for a moment that romantic love had anything much to do with marriage, its presence or absence did not trouble her on that score—if, as often happened, love came after, and a happy companionship grew, she took it thankfully; but if her husband stepped aside after another woman, provided the convenances we
re respected, and not too much money spent on her rival, she did not feel herself particularly humiliated— the thing was too usual! As for any idea of breaking up her marriage on those grounds, or even regarding it as a serious failure, she would have laughed it to scorn.
Another thing which tended to put the Italian woman in a stronger position than her English contemporaries was the accepted convention that women should go on being admired, treated with gallantry, and even courted after marriage. That shutting-down of all male attention but the husband’s, once the vestry door has closed behind the bride, had—and has—no place in the Italian scheme of things; nor had the Germano-British tradition of the subservience of the wife. Her opinions were as much valued as those of her husband, and as freely expressed. This, and the further tradition of habitual courtesy, of being socially adequate and entertaining even within the family circle, added greatly to the pleasantness of marriage—Almina, accustomed to her Father’s brusque monosyllables, his lack of response to her Mother’s conversational openings, had already noted with surprise, and reported in a letter home, that the Marchese Francesco treated his wife “like a visitor.”