Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Duchessa,” he said at last, glancing at her beautiful face, “things are greatly changed since we met last. You were angry with me then. I do not know whether you were so justly, but you were very angry for a few moments. I am going to return to the subject now; I trust you will not be offended with me.”

  Corona trembled for a moment, and was silent. She would have prevented him from going on, but before she could find the words she sought he continued.

  “Things are much changed, in some respects; in others, not at all. It is but natural to suppose that in the course of time you will think of the possibility of marrying again. My son, Duchessa, loves you very truly. Pardon me, it is no disrespect to you, now, that he should have told me so. I am his father, and I have no one else to care for. He is too honest a gentleman to have spoken of his affection for you at an eailier period, but he has told me of it now.”

  Corona stood still in the midst of the great hall, and faced the old

  Prince. She had grown pale while he was speaking. Still she was silent.

  “I have nothing more to say — that is all,” said Saracinesca, gazing earnestly into the depths of her eyes. “I have nothing more to say.”

  “Do you then mean to repeat the warning you once gave me?” asked Corona, growing whiter still. “Do you mean to imply that there is danger to your son?”

  “There is danger — great danger for him, unless you will avert it.”

  “And how?” asked Corona, in a low voice.

  “Madam, by becoming his wife.”

  Corona started and turned away in great agitation. Saracinesca stood still while she slowly walked a few steps from him. She could not speak.

  “I could say a great deal more, Duchessa,” he said, as she came back towards him. “I could say that the marriage is not only fitting in every other way, but is also advantageous from a worldly point of view. You are sole mistress of Astrardente; my son will before long be sole master of Saracinesca. Our lands are near together — that is a great advantage, that question of fortune. Again, I would observe that, with your magnificent position, you could not condescend to accept a man of lower birth than the highest in the country. There is none higher than the Saracinesca — pardon my arrogance, — and among princes there is no braver, truer gentleman than my son Giovanni. I ask no pardon for saying that; I will maintain it against all comers. I forego all questions of advantage, and base my argument upon that. He is the best man I know, and he loves you devotedly.”

  “Is he aware that you are here for this purpose?” asked Corona, suddenly.

  She spoke with a great effort.

  “No. He knows that I am here, and was glad that I came. He desired me to ascertain if you would see him. He would certainly not have thought of addressing you at present. I am an old man, and I feel that I must do things quickly. That is my excuse.”

  Corona was again silent. She was too truthful to give an evasive answer, and yet she hesitated to speak. The position was an embarrassing one; she was taken unawares, and was terrified at the emotion she felt. It had never entered her mind that the old Prince could appear on his son’s behalf, and she did not know how to meet him.

  “I have perhaps been too abrupt,” said Saracinesca. “I love my son very dearly, and his happiness is more to me than what remains of my own. If from the first you regard my proposition as an impossible one, I would spare him the pain of a humiliation, — I fear I could not save him from the rest, from a suffering that might drive him mad. It is for this reason that I implore you, if you are able, to give me some answer, not that I may convey it to him, but in order that I may be guided in future. He cannot forget you; but he has not seen you for six months. To see you again if he must leave you for ever, would only inflict a fresh wound.” He paused, while Corona slowly walked by his side.

  “I do not see why I should conceal the truth, from you,” she said at last. “I cannot conceal it from myself. I am not a child that I should be ashamed of it. There is nothing wrong in it — no reason why it should not be. You are honest, too — why should we try to deceive ourselves? I trust to your honour to be silent, and I own that I — that I love your son.”

  Corona stood still and turned her face away, as the burning blush rose to her cheeks. The answer she had given was characteristic of her, straightforward and honest. She was not ashamed of it, and yet the words were so new, so strange in their sound, and so strong in their meaning, that she blushed as she uttered them. Saracinesca was greatly surprised, too, for he had expected some evasive turn, some hint that he might bring Giovanni. But his delight had no bounds.

  “Duchessa,” he said, “the happiest day I can remember was when I brought home my wife to Saracinesca. My proudest day will be that on which my son enters the same gates with you by his side.”

  He took her hand and raised it to his lips, with a courteous gesture.

  “It will be long before that — it must be very long,” answered Corona.

  “It shall be when you please, Madam, provided it is at last. Meanwhile we will come down to-morrow, and take you to our tower. Do you understand now why I said that I hoped you would come again and stay longer? I trust you have not changed your mind in regard to the excursion.”

  “No. We will expect you to-morrow night. Remember, I have been honest with you — I trust to you to be silent.”

  “You have my word. And now, with your permission, I will return to Saracinesca. Believe me, the news that you expect us will be good enough to tell Giovanni.”

  “You may greet him from me. But will you not rest awhile before you ride back? You must be tired.”

  “No fear of that!” answered the Prince. “You have put a new man into an old one. I shall never tire of bearing the news of your greetings.”

  So the old man left her, and mounted his horse and rode up the pass. But Corona remained for hours in the vaulted hall, pacing up and down. It had come too soon — far too soon. And yet, how she had longed for it! how she had wondered whether it would ever come at all!

  The situation was sufficiently strange, too. Giovanni had once told her of his love, and she had silenced him. He was to tell her again, and she was to accept what he said. He was to ask her to marry him, and her answer was a foregone conclusion. It seemed as though this greatest event of her life were planned to the very smallest details beforehand; as though she were to act a part which she had studied, and which was yet no comedy because it was the expression of her life’s truth. The future had been, as it were, prophesied and completely foretold to her, and held no surprises; and yet it was more sweet to think of than all the past together. She wondered how he would say it, what his words would be, how he would look, whether he would again be as strangely violent as he had been that night at the Palazzo Frangipani. She wondered, most of all, how she would answer him. But it would be long yet. There would be many meetings, many happy days before that happiest day of all.

  Sister Gabrielle saw a wonderful change in Corona’s face that afternoon when they drove up the valley together, and she remarked what wonderful effect a little variety had upon her companion’s spirits — she could not say upon her health, for Corona seemed made of velvet and steel, so smooth and dark, and yet so supple and strong. Corona smiled brightly as she looked far up at the beetling crags behind which Saracinesca was hidden.

  “We shall be up there the day after to-morrow,” she said. “How strange it will seem!” And leaning back, her deep eyes flashed, and she laughed happily.

  On the following evening, again, they drove along the road that led up the valley. But they had not gone far when they saw in the distance a cloud of dust, from which in a few moments emerged a vehicle drawn by three strong horses, and driven by Giovanni Saracinesca himself. His father sat beside him in front, and a man in livery was seated at the back, with a long rifle between his knees. The vehicle was a kind of double cart, capable of holding four persons, and two servants at the back.

  In a moment the two carriages met
and stopped side by side. Giovanni sprang from his seat, throwing the reins to his father, who stood up hat in hand, and bowed from where he was. Corona held out her hand to Giovanni as he stood bareheaded in the road beside her. One long look told all the tale; there could be no words there before the Sister and the old Prince, but their eyes told all — the pain of past separation, the joy of two loving hearts that met at last without hindrance.

  “Let your servant drive, and get in with us,” said Corona, who could hardly speak in her excitement. Then she started slightly, and smiled in her embarrassment. She had continued to hold Giovanni’s hand, unconsciously leaving her fingers in his.

  The Prince’s groom climbed into the front seat, and old Saracinesca got down and entered the landau. It was a strangely silent meeting, long expected by the two who so loved each other — long looked for, but hardly realised now that it had come. The Prince was the first to speak, as usual.

  “You expected to meet us, Duchessa?” he said; “we expected to meet you. An expectation fulfilled is better than a surprise. Everything at Saracinesca is prepared for your reception. Don Angelo, our priest, has been warned of your coming, and the boy who serves mass has been washed. You may imagine that a great festivity is expected. Giovanni has turned the castle inside out, and had a room hung entirely with tapestries of my great-grandmother’s own working. He says that since the place is so old, its antiquity should be carried into the smallest details.”

  Corona laughed gaily — she would have laughed at anything that day — and the old Prince’s tone was fresh and sparkling and merry. He had relieved the first embarrassment of the situation.

  “There have been preparations at Astrardente for your reception, too,” answered the Duchessa. “There was a difficulty of choice, as there are about a hundred vacant rooms in the house. The butler proposed to give you a suite of sixteen to pass the night in, but I selected an airy little nook in one of the wings, where you need only go through ten to get to your bedroom.”

  “There is nothing like space,” said the Prince; “it enlarges the ideas.”

  “I cannot imagine what my father would do if his ideas were extended,” remarked Giovanni. “Everything he imagines is colossal already. He talks about tunnelling the mountains for my aqueduct, as though it were no more trouble than to run a stick through a piece of paper.”

  “Your aqueduct, indeed!” exclaimed his father. “I would like to know whose idea it was?”

  “I hear you are working like an engineer yourself, Don Giovanni,” said

  Corona. “I have a man at work at Astrardente on some plans of roads.

  Perhaps some day you could give us your advice.”

  Some day! How sweet the words sounded to Giovanni as he sat opposite the woman he loved, bowling along through the rich vine lands in the cool of the summer evening!

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THE OPPORTUNITY WHICH Giovanni sought of being alone with Corona was long in coming. Sister Gabrielle retired immediately after dinner, and the Duchessa was left alone with the two men. Old Saracinesca would gladly have left his son with the hostess, but the thing was evidently impossible. The manners of the time would not allow it, and the result was that the Prince spent the evening in making conversation for two rather indifferent listeners. He tried to pick a friendly quarrel with Giovanni, but the latter was too absent-minded even to be annoyed; he tried to excite the Duchessa’s interest, but she only smiled gently, making a remark from time to time which was conspicuous for its irrelevancy. But old Saracinesca was in a good humour, and he bore up bravely until ten o’clock, when Corona gave the signal for retiring. They were to start very early in the morning, she said, and she must have rest.

  When the two men were alone, the Prince turned upon his son in semi-comic anger, and upbraided him with his obstinate dulness during the evening. Giovanni only smiled calmly, and shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing more to be said.

  But on the following morning, soon after six o’clock, Giovanni had the supreme satisfaction of installing Corona beside him upon the driving-seat of his cart, while his father and Sister Gabrielle sat together behind him. The sun was not yet above the hills, and the mountain air was keen and fresh; the stamping of the horses sounded crisp and sharp, and their bells rang merrily as they shook their sturdy necks and pricked their short ears to catch Giovanni’s voice.

  “Have you forgotten nothing, Duchessa?” asked Giovanni, gathering the reins in his hand.

  “Nothing, thanks. I have sent our things on mules — by the bridle-path.” She smiled involuntarily as she recalled her adventure, and half turned her face away.

  “Ah, yes — the bridle-path,” repeated Giovanni, as he nodded to the groom to stand clear of the horses’ heads. In a moment they were briskly descending the winding road through the town of Astrardente: the streets were quiet and cool, for the peasants had all gone to their occupations two hours before, and the children were not yet turned loose.

  “I never hoped to have the honour of myself driving you to Saracinesca,” said Giovanni. “It is a wild place enough, in its way. You will be able to fancy yourself in Switzerland.”

  “I would rather be in Italy,” answered Corona. “I do not care for the Alps. Our own mountains are as beautiful, and are not infested by tourists.”

  “You are a tourist to-day,” said Giovanni. “And it has pleased Heaven to make me your guide.”

  “I will listen to your explanations of the sights with interest.”

  “It is a reversal of the situation, is it not? When we last met, it was you who guided me, and I humbly followed your instructions. I did precisely as you told me.”

  “Had I doubted that you would do as I asked, I would not have spoken,” answered Corona.

  “There was one thing you advised me to do which I have not even attempted.”

  “What was that?”

  “You told me to forget you. I have spent six months in constantly remembering you, and in looking forward to this moment. Was I wrong?”

  “Of course,” replied the Duchessa, with a little laugh. “You should by this time have forgotten my existence. They said you were gone to the North Pole — why did you change your mind?”

  “I followed my load-star. It led me from Rome to Saracinesca by the way of Paris. I should have remained at Saracinesca — but you also changed your mind. I began to think you never would.”

  “How long do you think of staying up there?” asked Corona, to turn the conversation.

  “Just so long as you stay at Astrardente,” he answered. “You will not forbid me to follow you to Rome?”

  “How can I prevent you if you choose to do it?”

  “By a word, as you did before.”

  “Do you think I would speak that word?” she asked.

  “I trust not. Why should you cause me needless pain and suffering? It was right then, it is not right now. Besides, you know me too well to think that I would annoy you or thrust myself upon you. But I will do as you wish.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. But she turned her dark face toward him, and looked at him for a moment very gently, almost lovingly. Where was the use of trying to conceal what would not be hidden? Every word he spoke told of his unchanged love, although the phrases were short and simple. Why should she conceal what she felt? She knew it was a foregone conclusion. They loved each other, and she would certainly marry him in the course of a year. The long pent up forces of her nature were beginning to assert themselves; she had conquered and fought down her natural being in the effort to be all things to her old husband, to quench her growing interest in Giovanni, to resist his declared love, to drive him from her in her widowhood; but now it seemed as though all obstacles were suddenly removed. She saw clearly how well she loved him, and it seemed folly to try and conceal it. As she sat by his side she was unboundedly happy, as she had never been in her life before: the cool morning breeze fanned her cheeks, and the music of his low voice soothed her, while the delicious
sense of rapid motion lent a thrill of pleasure to every breath she drew. It was no matter what she said; it was as though she spoke unconsciously. All seemed predestined and foreplanned from all time, to be acted out to the end. The past vanished slowly as a retreating landscape. The weary traveller, exhausted with the heat of the scorching Campagna, slowly climbs the ascent towards Tivoli, the haven of cool waters, and pausing now and then upon the path, looks back and sees how the dreary waste of undulating hillocks beneath him seems gradually to subside into a dim flat plain, while, in the far distance, the mighty domes and towers of Rome dwindle to an unreal mirage in the warm haze of the western sky; then advancing again, he feels the breath of the mountains upon him, and hears the fresh plunge of the cold cataract, till at last, when his strength is almost failing, it is renewed within him, and the dust and the heat of the day’s journey are forgotten in the fulness of refreshment. So Corona d’Astrardente, wearied though not broken by the fatigues and the troubles and the temptations of the past five years, seemed suddenly to be taken up and borne swiftly through the gardens of an earthly paradise, where there was neither care nor temptation, and where, in the cool air of a new life, the one voice she loved was ever murmuring gentle things to her willing ear.

  As the road began to ascend, sweeping round the base of the mountain and upwards by even gradations upon its southern flank, the sun rose higher in the heavens, and the locusts broke into their summer song among the hedges with that even, long-drawn, humming note, so sweet to southern ears. But Corona did not feel the heat, nor notice the dust upon the way; she was in a new state, wherein such things could not trouble her. The first embarrassment of a renewed intimacy was fast disappearing, and she talked easily to Giovanni of many things, reviewing past scenes and speaking of mutual acquaintances, turning the conversation when it concerned Giovanni or herself too directly, yet ever and again coming back to that sweet ground which was no longer dangerous now. At last, at a turn in the road, the grim towers of ancient Saracinesca loomed in the distance, and the carriage entered a vast forest of chestnut trees, shady and cool after the sunny ascent. So they reached the castle, and the sturdy horses sprang wildly forward up the last incline till their hoofs struck noisily upon the flagstones of the bridge, and with a rush and a plunge they dashed under the black archway, and halted in the broad court beyond.