Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  There were several of these rallying points, among which may be chiefly noticed the Palazzo Valdarno, the Palazzo Saracinesca, and the Palazzo Montevarchi. In the first of these three it may be observed in passing that there was a division of opinion, the old people being the most rigid of conservatives, while the children declared as loudly as they dared that they were for Victor Emmanuel and United Italy. The Saracinesca, on the other hand, were firmly united and determined to stand by the existing order of things. Lastly, the Montevarchi all took their opinions from the head of the house, and knew very well that they would submit like sheep to be led whichever way was most agreeable to the old prince. The friends who frequented those various gatherings were of course careful to say whatever was most sure to please their hosts, and after the set speeches were made most of them fell to their usual occupation of talking about each other.

  Gouache was an old friend of the Saracinesca, and came whenever he pleased; since his accident, too, he had become better acquainted with the Montevarchi, and was always a welcome guest, as he generally brought the latest news of the fighting, as well as the last accounts from France, which he easily got through his friendship with the young attaches of his embassy. It is not surprising therefore that he should have found so many opportunities of meeting Donna Faustina, especially as Corona di Sant’ Ilario had taken a great fancy to the young girl and invited her constantly to the house.

  On the very first occasion when Gouache called upon the Princess Montevarchi in order to express again his thanks for the kindness he had received, he found the room half full of people. Faustina was sitting alone, turning over the pages of a book, and no one seemed to pay any attention to her. After the usual speeches to the hostess Gouache sat down beside her. She raised her brown eyes, recognised him, and smiled faintly.

  “What a wonderful contrast you are enjoying, Donna Faustina,” said the

  Zouave.

  “How so? I confess it seems monotonous enough.”

  “I mean that it is a great change for you, from the choir of the Sacro

  Cuore, from the peace of a convent, to this atmosphere of war.”

  “Yes; I wish I were back again.”

  “You do not like what you have seen of the world, Mademoiselle? It is very natural. If the world were always like this its attraction would not be dangerous. It is the pomps and vanities that are delightful.”

  “I wish they would begin then,” answered Donna Faustina with more natural frankness than is generally found in young girls of her education.

  “But were you not taught by the good sisters that those things are of the devil?” asked Gouache with a smile.

  “Of course. But Flavia says they are very nice.”

  Gouache imagined that Flavia ought to know, but he thought fit to conceal his conviction.

  “You mean Donna Flavia, your sister, Mademoiselle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you are very fond of her, are you not? It must be very pleasant to have a sister so nearly of one’s own age in the world.”

  “She is much older than I, but I think we shall be very good friends.”

  “Your family must be almost as much strangers to you as the rest of the world,” observed Gouache. “Of course you have only seen them occasionally for a long time past. You are fond of reading, I see.”

  He made this remark to change the subject, and glanced at the book the young girl still held in her hand.

  “It is a new book,” she said, opening the volume at the title-page. “It is Manon Lescaut. Flavia has read it — it is by the Abbe Prevost. Do you know him?”

  Gouache did not know whether to laugh or to look grave.

  “Did your mother give it to you?” he asked.

  “No, but she says that as it is by an abbe, she supposes it must be very moral. It is true that it has not the imprimatur, but being by a priest it cannot possibly be on the Index.”

  “I do not know,” replied Gouache, “Prevost was certainly in holy orders, but I do not know him, as he died rather more than a hundred years ago. You see the book is not new.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Donna Faustina, “I thought it was. Why do you laugh? Am

  I very ignorant not to know all about it?”

  “No, indeed. Only, you will pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I offer a suggestion. You see I am French and know a little about these matters. You will permit me?”

  Faustina opened her brown eyes very wide, and nodded gravely.

  “If I were you, I would not read that book yet. You are too young.”

  “You seem to forget that I am eighteen years old, Monsieur Gouache.”

  “No, not at all. But five and twenty is a better age to read such books. Believe me,” he added seriously, “that story is not meant for you.”

  Faustina looked at him for a few seconds and then laid the volume on the table, pushing it away from her with a puzzled air. Gouache was inwardly much amused at the idea of finding himself the moral preceptor of a young girl he scarcely knew, in the house of her parents, who passed for the most strait-laced of their kind. A feeling of deep resentment against Flavia, however, began to rise beneath his first sensation of surprise.

  “What are books for?” asked Donna Faustina, with a little sigh. “The good ones are dreadfully dull, and it is wrong to read the amusing ones — until one is married. I wonder why?”

  Gouache did not find any immediate answer and might have been seriously embarrassed had not Giovanni Sant’ Ilario come up just then. Gouache rose to relinquish his seat to the newcomer, and as he passed before the table deftly turned over the book with his finger so that the title should not be visible. It jarred disagreeably on his sensibilities to think that Giovanni might see a copy of Manon Lescaut lying by the elbow of Donna Faustina Montevarchi. Sant’ Ilario did not see the action and probably would not have noticed it if he had.

  Anastase pondered all that afternoon and part of the next morning over his short conversation, and the only conclusion at which he arrived was that Faustina was the most fascinating girl he had ever met. When he compared the result produced in his mind with his accurate recollection of what had passed between them, he laughed at his haste and called himself a fool for yielding to such nonsensical ideas. The conversation of a young girl, he argued, could only be amusing for a short time. He wondered what he should say at their next meeting, since all such talk, according to his notions, must inevitably consist of commonplaces. And yet at the end of a quarter of an hour of such meditation he found that he was constructing an interview which was anything but dull, at least in his own anticipatory opinion.

  Meanwhile the first ten days of October passed in comparative quiet. The news of Garibaldi’s arrest produced temporary lull in the excitement felt in Rome, although the real struggle was yet to come. People observed to each other that strange faces were to be seen in the streets, but as no one could enter without a proper passport, very little anxiety gained the public mind.

  Gouache saw Faustina very often during the month that followed his accident. Such good fortune would have been impossible under any other circumstances, but, as has been explained, there were numerous little social confabulations on foot, for people were drawn together by a vague sense of common danger, and the frequent meetings of the handsome Zouave with the youngest of the Montevarchi passed unnoticed in the general stir. The old princess indeed often saw the two together, but partly owing to her English breeding, and partly because Gouache was not in the least eligible or possible as a husband for her daughter, she attached no importance to the acquaintance. The news that Garibaldi was again at large caused great excitement, and every day brought fresh news of small engagements along the frontier. Gouache was not yet quite recovered, though he felt as strong as ever, and applied every day for leave to go to the front. At last, on the 22d of October, the surgeon pronounced him to be completely recovered, and Anastase was ordered to leave the city on the following morning at daybreak.

  As he mount
ed the sombre staircase of the Palazzo Saracinesca on the afternoon previous to his departure, the predominant feeling in his breast was great satisfaction and joy at being on the eve of seeing active service, and he himself was surprised at the sharp pang he suffered in the anticipation of bidding farewell to his friends. He knew what friend it was whom he dreaded to leave, and how bitter that parting would be, for which three weeks earlier he could have summoned a neat speech expressing just so much of feeling as should be calculated to raise an interest in the hearer, and prompted by just so much delicate regret as should impart a savour of romance to his march on the next day. It was different now.

  Donna Faustina was in the room, as he had reason to expect, but it was several minutes before Anastase could summon the determination necessary to go to her side. She was standing near the piano, which faced outwards towards the body of the room, but was screened by a semicircular arrangement of plants, a novel idea lately introduced by Corona, who was weary of the stiff old-fashioned way of setting all the furniture against the wall. Faustina was standing at this point therefore, when Gouache made towards her, having done homage to Corona and to the other ladies in the room. His attention was arrested for a moment by the sight of San Giacinto’s gigantic figure. The cousin of the house was standing before Flavia Montevarchi, bending slightly towards her and talking in low tones. His magnificent proportions made him by far the most noticeable person in the room, and it is no wonder that Gouache paused and looked at him, mentally observing that the two would make a fine couple.

  As he stood still he became aware that Corona herself was at his side. He glanced at her with something of inquiry in his eyes, and was about to speak when she made him a sign to follow her. They sat down together in a deserted corner at the opposite end of the room.

  “I have something to say to you, Monsieur Gouache,” she said, in a low voice, as she settled herself against the cushions. “I do not know that I have any right to speak, except that of a good friend — and of a woman.”

  “I am at your orders, princess.”

  “No, I have no orders to give you. I have only a suggestion to make. I have watched you often during the last month. My advice begins with a question. Do you love her?”

  Gouache’s first instinct was to express the annoyance he felt at this interrogation. He moved quickly and glanced sharply at Corona’s velvet eyes. Before the words that were on his lips could be spoken he remembered all the secret reverence and respect he had felt for this woman since he had first known her, he remembered how he had always regarded her as a sort of goddess, a superior being, at once woman and angel, placed far beyond the reach of mortals like himself. His irritation vanished as quickly as it had arisen. But Corona had seen it.

  “Are you angry?” she asked.

  “If you knew how I worship you, you would know that I am not,” answered

  Gouache with a strange simplicity.

  For an instant the princess’s deep eyes flashed and a dark blush mounted through her olive skin. She drew back, rather proudly. A delicate, gentle smile played round the soldier’s mouth.

  “Perhaps it is your turn to be angry, Madame,” he said, quietly. “But you need not be. I would say it to your husband, as I would say it to you in his presence. I worship you. You are the most beautiful woman in the world, the most nobly good. Everybody knows it, why should I not say it? I wish I were a little child, and that you were my mother. Are you angry still?”

  Corona was silent, and her eyes grew soft again as she looked kindly at the man beside her. She did not understand him, but she knew that he meant to express something which was not bad. Gouache waited for her to speak.

  “It was not for that I asked you to come with me,” she said at last.

  “I am glad I said it,” replied Gouache. “I am going away to-morrow, and it might never have been said. You asked me if I loved her. I trust you. I say, yes, I do. I am going to say good-bye this afternoon.”

  “I am sorry you love her. Is it serious?”

  “Absolutely, on my part. Why are you sorry? Is there anything unnatural in it?”

  “No, on the contrary, it is too natural. Our lives are unnatural. You cannot marry her. It seems brutal to tell you so, but you must know it already.”

  “There was once a little boy in Paris, Madame, who did not have enough to eat every day, nor enough clothes when the north wind blew. But he had a good heart. His name was Anastase Gouache.”

  “My dear friend,” said Corona, kindly, “the atmosphere of Casa Montevarchi is colder than the north wind. A man may overcome almost anything more easily than the old-fashioned prejudices of a Roman prince.”

  “You do not forbid me to try?”

  “Would the prohibition make any difference?”

  “I am not sure.” Gouache paused and looked long at the princess. “No,” he said at last, “I am afraid not.”

  “In that case I can only say one thing. You are a man of honour. Do your best not to make her uselessly unhappy. Win her if you can, by any fair means. But she has a heart, and I am very fond of the child. If any harm comes to her I shall hold you responsible. If you love her, think what it would be should she love you and be married to another man.”

  A shade of sadness darkened Corona’s brow, as she remembered those terrible months of her own life. Gouache knew what she meant and was silent for a few moments.

  “I trust you,” said she, at last. “And since you are going to-morrow,

  God bless you. You are going in a good cause.”

  She held out her hand as she rose to leave him, and he bent over it and touched it with his lips, as he would have kissed the hand of his mother. Then, skirting the little assembly of people, Anastase went back towards the piano, in search of Donna Faustina. He found her alone, as young girls are generally to be found in Roman drawing-rooms, unless there are two of them present to sit together.

  “What have you been talking about with the princess?” asked Donna

  Faustina when Gouache was seated beside her.

  “Could you see from here?” asked Gouache instead of answering. “I thought the plants would have hindered you.”

  “I saw you kiss her hand when you got up, and so I supposed that the conversation had been serious.”

  “Less serious than ours must be,” replied Anastase, sadly. “I was saying good-bye to her, and now—”

  “Good-bye? Why — ?” Faustina checked herself and looked away to hide her pallor. She felt cold, and a slight shiver passed over her slender figure.

  “I am going to the front to-morrow morning.”

  There was a long silence, during which the two looked at each other from time to time, neither finding courage to speak. Since Gouache had been in the room it had grown dark, and as yet but one lamp had been brought. The young man’s eyes sought those he loved in the dusk, and as his hand stole out it met another, a tender, nervous hand, trembling with emotion. They did not heed what was passing near them.

  As though their silence were contagious, the conversation died away, and there was a general lull, such as sometimes falls upon an assemblage of people who have been talking for some time. Then, through the deep windows there came up a sound of distant uproar, mingled with occasional sharp detonations, few indeed, but the more noticeable for their rarity. Suddenly the door of the drawing-room burst open, and a servant’s voice was heard speaking in a loud key, the coarse accents and terrified tone contrasting strangely with the sounds generally heard in such a place.

  “Excellency! Excellency! The revolution! Garibaldi is at the gates! The

  Italians are coming! Madonna! Madonna! The revolution, Eccellenza mia!”

  The man was mad with fear. Every one spoke at once. Some laughed, thinking the man crazy. Others, who had heard the distant noise from the streets, drew back and looked nervously towards the door. Then Sant’ Ilario’s clear, strong voice, rang like a clarion through the room.

  “Bar the gates. Shut the blinds all over the
house — it is of no use to let them break good windows. Don’t stand there shivering like a fool. It is only a mob.”

  Before he had finished speaking, San Giacinto was calmly bolting the blinds of the drawing-room windows, fastening each one as steadily and securely as he had been wont to put up the shutters of his inn at Aquila in the old days.

  In the dusky corner by the piano Gouache and Faustina were overlooked in the general confusion. There was no time for reflection, for at the first words of the servant Anastase knew that he must go instantly to his post. Faustina’s little hand was still clasped in his, as they both sprang to their feet. Then with a sudden movement he clasped her in his arms and kissed her passionately.

  “Good-bye — my beloved!”

  The girl’s arms were twined closely about him, and her eyes looked up to his with a wild entreaty.

  “You are safe here, my darling — good-bye!”

  “Where are you going?”