by Ann Bridge
He found her, as he had done on that evening nearly a fortnight before, sitting ready dressed for dinner by the marble table under the stone pine. Marietta in these days liked her own company better than ever; she loved the late evening light, too, and made a practice of dressing early—then, while the rest of the family were getting ready, she was fairly sure of half an hour to herself on the terrace, when she could sit and watch the level golden rays of the sun catching the near tree-tops in the Park below, and the still, distant shapes of the mountains slowly changing from blue to lilac, from lilac to a silvery rose. She was so sitting now, her chin propped on her hands, gazing at them; as the young man approached he was struck, this time, by something curiously desolate about that small figure, in the unbecoming stiff white dress, all alone under the great tree. He went over and put an awkward arm round her small shoulders. “What are you thinking about, cara?” he asked.
The unwonted caress and endearment startled the child, shook her out of her usual self-control. Her eyes were swimming in sudden tears as she turned them up to her cousin.
“Oh, her” she said sadly. “I am almost always thinking of her.”
He sat down beside her, and again put his arm, with clumsy tenderness, round her little thin form.
“Listen, I have some good news for you about her,” he said. “She isn’t going to—to have a baby.”
“Who told you?”
“Bonne-Mama. Marietta, that is good news, isn’t it?
“Yes, it is. Yes, it is very good,” she said, warmly and gladly, fumbling for her handkerchief to wipe her eyes.
“Here, have mine,” Giulio said, pulling it out with his free hand; releasing his hold of her, he actually wiped her eyes himself, gripping the back of her head to steady it, as a nurse does when she washes a child’s face. The absurd little kindness touched and amused her; it brought her smile running like quicksilver over her face.
“Giulio, you would make quite a good bonnel” she said. “Tell me, what else did Bonne-Mama say?”
“Well, you know I am to go to Oxford? Gela told me yesterday, but she said I was not to speak of it; but now that Bonne-Mama has told me too, I do not see why I should not, especially to you.”
“Oh Giulio, I am glad! I am so very glad! How was this settled?”
“Oh, it is all Bonne-Mama, of course. She sent for Papa, and arranged it. Gela told me that. Papa did not like it, and to me he has not spoken of it; but he has agreed, and I am to go.”
“That is very good,” the child said thoughtfully. “It is right. Bonne-Mama always knows what is right; and she causes things to happen, as others cannot. She has some special force in her.”
“Yes, she is wonderful,” the boy said, earnestly. “But, Marietta, do you know, I think you have something of her way of knowing what is right also.” And as she looked at him in surprise—“Do you remember what you said to me that first day, over there—” he waved behind him towards the ridge “—about—about Almina? That because—what happened—was not of her intention, it did not affect her soul? Not touch her, really, at all?”
“Yes,” she said. “I remember. I am sure it is true.”
“Well, Bonne-Mama said almost the same thing to me this afternoon. She said that she was good, that it was only misfortune. And she spoke of the soul being what mattered. You know,” said Giulio simply, “I did not know that Bonne-Mama thought much about such things.”
“Oh yes—I am sure she does, in her heart; she knows nearly everything. But she does not speak of it—she laughs and is sarcastic, because that is somehow easier,” the child said. “But I am very glad she told you this, because you will believe her” she added, quite practically and without the smallest resentment.
“Another time, I think perhaps I shall believe you too,” the boy said. “I think you are much wiser than I realised. But, Marietta, has it helped you, also, to believe this—to be less unhappy, I mean to say?” Giulio felt vaguely that he ought to be getting on with the business of comforting his little cousin; this talk was in itself easing and consoling, but so far he was not doing much.
“Yes, in a way. But I miss her so dreadfully, all the time; and I hate not knowing how she is, and thinking of how unhappy she must be, all alone over there,” the child said sadly, looking across to where Castellone showed white and maroon above the tree-tops. “You see, she may not know that we think this. She may feel about herself as—as you felt about her, till now. Oh, I wish I could see her!” she said, on a long breath.
“I wonder if you could not!” Giulio said suddenly. “I believe it might be possible, Marietta. Because, do you know, Bonne-Mama has promised that before she goes back to England, I shall see her! She said that. And she was quite amiable about all that; she said that when I was in England, after a time, if I found that I—that I loved her still,” he dropped his voice—“and I am sure that I shall—she spoke of my meeting her there. It was as if she even thought of my perhaps marrying her.”
“Shall you want to, since she isn’t going to have a baby?” Marietta asked.
“I think—you see, I have never thought of marriage, only of loving her,” Giulio said, with perfect candour. “But indeed I think I should wish to; if I marry anyone, she would be the one.” He looked thoughtfully ahead of him, then back at Marietta. “But I think you ought to see her too. I shall tell Bonne-Mama that you wish to.”
“She might not like that,” Marietta said.
“She wants you to be happy,” the boy said. “Anyhow, I shall try.”
“I wish Bonne-Mama would see her herself,” the child said musingly—“that is what would help her most of all, if Bonne-Mama would say those things to her that she said to you. I should try to say them, if I were allowed to see her; but I don’t suppose she would pay any more attention to me than you did!” she said, a momentary glint of amusement crossing her small face. “I am too young—no one pays any attention to what people say till their hair is up! There’s the bell! Giulio, you must fly,” she added, as the deep musical notes boomed out across the garden.
In fact, this was another of the cases where Marietta and the old Marchesa thought the same thing right. A couple of days later, unprompted by Giulio, the old lady did something she very rarely did nowadays—after due preparation, and exchanges of notes, she ordered out the closed carriage and, escorted by both Giacinta and Roberto, she drove over to Castellone, in the teeth of the impassioned protests and lamentations of the Marchese Francesco, who was sure that it would be too much for her. The birthday was now only three days off; there was, in spite of Suzy’s illness, to be a big reception in the afternoon—she ought to be saving up all her strength for that, her son said; and the Doctor and Giacinta said likewise. The old lady swept their objections aside. She wished to go; she was the best judge of her own powers; she was going. She went.
Her first call was on the Countess Livia. It was very formal—the old Marchesa found Livia, with her lack of vitality, her sour righteousness, and her religiosity singularly unsympathetic. And she was a rare hand at keeping her powder dry; she was not going to waste her strength—which was by no means as great as she had given the Doctor and the Marchese Francesco to understand—on a discussion of recent events with Livia, which would certainly irritate her. No— she had only one serious thing to say to the widow, and after ten minutes exchange of courteous trivialities, as she rose to take her leave she said it. “My dear Livia, I am sure you will understand me when I say that the more your son Roffredo is in Milan, and out of the Province, for the next few months, the better. Goodbye. This has been such a pleasure. Till the twenty-third! A rivederci!”
Then she drove on along the wide terraced drive to the red wing, and called on the Countesses Aspasia and Roma. This interview, though less chilly, was also brief. Sitting very erect in her chair, the old lady formally thanked them both for what they had done for Miss Prestwich. “You have performed a work of charity, and you have conferred a real benefit upon my family. I am grateful t
o you.” The sisters said how utterly nothing their action had been, and what a pleasure it was, but it was evident that they were both gratified and warmed by this deliberate and gracious act of courtesy.
And then the old Marchesa said that she had a request to make. “I should like to speak with Miss Prestwich, alone. Is this possible? I beg that you will not derange yourselves —her room, the garden, wherever is most convenient!” But of course there was really no question of her moving from the chair in which she sat—the sisters left, and after a few moments the door opened slowly, and Miss Prestwich came into the room.
She stood for a moment, hesitating, just inside the door, looking with large and rather timid eyes at the old Marchesa. “You wished to speak to me, Marchesa?” she said at last, in her pretty polite Italian. The hesitation, the absence of the social greeting showed the old lady with painful clearness how uncertain the girl felt about her position, that she was wondering what to expect. This for some reason touched her rather sharply.
“Yes, my child, I do,” she said, very pleasantly. “Come and sit down here by me, and let us have a little talk.”
The ready colour came into the girl’s face as she crossed the room. La Vecchia Marchesa had never called her “ My child” before.
“You look pretty well,” the old woman said, scrutinising her in the light from the window as she sat down. “How do you feel?”
“I am quite well, I thank you, Marchesa. May I ask how the young Marchesa is?” Almina said rather nervously.
“Better—steadily getting better. Though she is extremely weak still, of course,” the old lady replied. “But I wish to speak about you. Do you sleep?”
“Fairly well,” the girl said, colouring again. It was time I came, the old woman thought to herself, noting that flying colour and the slightly tremulous voice—she is all to pieces still.
“That is right. Well, my child, I am not over-proud of the way my relations have behaved to you,” the old lady said, without further preamble. “It has distressed me very much that this should have happened to you while you were with us. I wish to tell you, on behalf of—of us all—that I regret it very deeply.”
This, which practically amounted to an apology, surprised and embarrassed Miss Prestwich so much that she was almost incapable of speech. She blushed more deeply than ever, and said “Thank you, Marchesa.”
“Niente. There is something else that I wish to say to you. I had occasion recently to have an interview with my great-nephew, Roffredo, who told me, with all possible emphasis, that there was no foundation whatever for an accusation which was, I believe, made a ground for your dismissal—that of impropriety with him while under my son’s roof. I believe him—and I wish you to know that I believe him.”
This time Almina made no answer at all—speech was quite beyond her. She sat struggling to maintain her self-control for a moment or two, and then hid her face in her hands. The old lady let her be for some minutes, saying merely—“Cry, my child—it will do you good.” Presently the girl raised a flushed and disordered face. “Marchesa, I—I am glad. I beg your pardon,” she gulped out.
“My child, that is quite unnecessary—I have just been begging yours! But now—are you suffciently composed to listen to me? For I have something more to say to you.”
The girl nodded.
“Listen, then. First, a piece of advice. When you are acting as a governess, never have anything to do with young men. You may be innocent as the dawn, but it does not pay. Dismiss them all; if they do not accept this, tell your employer, or leave. There is no other way.”
The girl looked at her. “Marchesa, I did mean—I did at one time refuse to see him. But then—it began again, and I found it almost impossible, in the circumstances—”
“Enough! I know the circumstances. You were most unfortunately situated,” the old Marchesa interrupted. “I do not blame you, in this case; I am merely advising you for the future. And a propos of the future, have you made any plans?”
At that Almina fairly broke down. “No,” she sobbed out. “How can I? I have no reference, from here—and it has been so short. I do not know what to do! I suppose I must go home. But—my Mother! She had counted so much on this! And all my clothes! I cannot think what she will feel. And I, myself— now!” she shuddered, and covered her face with her hands once more. “I feel so— strange; and wicked—I do not see how I can go home to them,” she went on, in a low despairing tone. She took her hands down again and looked at the old Marchesa with desperate eyes. She had always liked and respected the old lady, and now that her defence of silence had so to speak been breached, all the wretchedness which she had been bottling up for the last two weeks came surging to the surface —the despair at her failure, the sense of assoilment. “I cannot really understand it,” she pursued. “I must have been—oh, in some way horrible myself, or it could not have happened. And yet, at the time”—again she struggled with sobs—“it seemed so beautiful!”
The old Marchesa sat, during this outpouring, watching and listening to the girl. Some of her words, half-strangled by sobs, she missed, but the sense of what Almina was saying, the whole of her bruised and wounded state was perfectly clear to her. And once more she was unusually moved. From the heights of her immense age, the cool wisdom which those long decades of experience had taught her, she now, at the close of her hundredth year, stretched out a hand to the stricken creature, the pretty conscientious little foreigner whose good-breeding and integrity had been so evident to her from the outset.
“Listen,” she said again—”listen to me. In the first place, do not, I beg you, exaggerate what has happened. My nephew is, unfortunately, a reckless and selfish creature—he treated you shamefully when you went to him, as I believe in all innocence, for help. Tell me, were you not drunk that night?”
The girl bent her head in assent.
“So. In the circumstances, one cannot be surprised at that, nor seriously blame you for it, in the state you were in; and without food for many hours. And in that condition, when you were really not responsible for your actions, he took you at a disadvantage. That, really, is his responsibility, not yours. Now, in this matter I wish you to see clearly, to envisage things as they are, and not falsely,” the old lady said, with emphasis. “You are not guilty—no sane person could hold you so. To love a selfish man is unwise, but it is not a crime; and you have had little experience. In your country, girls are very oddly brought up, according to our ideas; they are taught nothing about love—which, after all, is a very common occurrence. And I think that you perhaps overestimate the importance of this embrace. Is it the body which is immortal? Did your soul, willingly and of set purpose, yield yourself to him? Of course not—I knew it already, perfectly. Then let your soul rest in peace, for this. Call it an accident, if you will.”
She paused. Almina was looking at her with wide eyes and parted lips, but she said nothing.
“After all, it might have been much worse,” the old lady pursued briskly. “You have escaped the embarrassment of a child. That would have been a real complication! But as it is, you are what you were—try to remember that! And now,” she went on, fumbling in the little bag at her waist, “I have a plan for you. I heard not long since from my friend, the old grand-duchess of Saxe-Greinau, that she was seeking an English governess for her grand-children; she knew that you had come to us, and she thought I might help her to find one. I wrote already yesterday to her, recommending you. I have told her that we no longer need you now, since with my daughter’s illness, it is proposed to let Marietta be for several months, at least, with her cousin Elena, in the good Gelsicher’s care.”
She stopped, and began to remove from its envelope a letter which she pulled out of her bag. “Does this plan appeal to you?” she asked.
“Oh Marchesa, yes,” the girl said, the colour flooding into her face again. “But especially for Marietta! That is just what she needs, that is just what will help her most, at present —to be with the Signorina! I
am so very glad. Nothing could be better,” she said, almost eagerly.
The old lady looked oddly at her. “H’m! Well, no one could call you selfish,” she observed. “I am sorry the child has to lose you; and I am more than ever certain that I do right to recommend you to the Grand-Duchess. Now, here is a recommendation which I have written for you,” she said, handing her a couple of sheets covered with her fine quavering writing; “when the time comes, you can send it to her.”