Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “I think it is time that he knew more.”

  “Of what use can it be to tell him those old stories?” asked Corona. “And after all, I do not believe that Del Ferice has done so much. If you could have followed Orsino’s work, day by day and week by week, as I have, you would see how much is really due to his energy. Any other banker would have done as much as he. Besides, it is in Del Ferice’s own interest—”

  “That is the trouble,” interrupted Giovanni. “It is bad enough that he should help Orsino. It is much worse that he should help him in order to make use of him. If, as you say, any other bank would do as much, then let him go to another bank. If he owes Del Ferice money at the present moment, we will pay it for him.”

  “You forget that he has bought the buildings he is now finishing, from Del Ferice, on a mortgage.”

  Giovanni laughed a little.

  “How you have learned to talk about mortgages and deeds and all sorts of business!” he exclaimed. “But what you say is not an objection. We can pay off these mortgages, I suppose, and take the risk ourselves.”

  “Of course we could do that,” Corona answered, thoughtfully. “But I really think you exaggerate the whole affair. For the time being, Del Ferice is not a man, but a banker. His personal character and former doings do not enter into the matter.”

  “I think they do,” said Giovanni, still unconvinced.

  “At all events, do not make trouble now, dear,” said Corona in earnest tones. “Let the present contract be executed and finished, and then speak to Orsino before he makes another. Whatever Del Ferice may have done, you can see for yourself that Orsino is developing in a way we had not expected, and is becoming a serious, energetic man. Do not step in now, and check the growth of what is good. You will regret it as much as I shall. When he has finished these buildings he will have enough experience to make a new departure.”

  “I hate the idea of receiving a favour from Del Ferice, or of laying him under an obligation. I think I will go to him myself.”

  “To Del Ferice?” Corona started and looked round at Giovanni as she sat. She had a sudden vision of new trouble.

  “Yes. Why not? I will go to him and tell him that I would rather wind up my son’s business with him, as our former relations were not of a nature to make transactions of mutual profit either fitting or even permissible between any of our family and Ugo Del Ferice.”

  “For Heaven’s sake, Giovanni, do not do that.”

  “And why not?” He was surprised at her evident distress.

  “For my sake, then — do not quarrel with Del Ferice — it was different then, in the old days. I could not bear it now—” she stopped, and her lower lip trembled a little.

  “Do you love me better than you did then, Corona?”

  “So much better — I cannot tell you.”

  She touched his hand with hers and her dark eyes were a little veiled as they met his. Both were silent for a moment.

  “I have no intention of quarrelling with Del Ferice, dear,” said Giovanni, gently.

  His face had grown a shade paler as she spoke. The power of her hand and voice to move him, had not diminished in all the years of peaceful happiness that had passed so quickly.

  “I do not mean any such thing,” he said again. “But I mean this. I will not have it said that Del Ferice has made a fortune for Orsino, nor that Orsino has helped Del Ferice’s interests. I see no way but to interfere myself. I can do it without the suspicion of a quarrel.”

  “It will be a great mistake, Giovanni. Wait till there is a new contract.”

  “I will think of it, before doing anything definite.”

  Corona well knew that she should get no greater concession than this. The point of honour had been touched in Giovanni’s sensibilities and his character was stubborn and determined where his old prejudices were concerned. She loved him very dearly, and this very obstinacy of his pleased her. But she fancied that trouble of some sort was imminent. She understood her son’s nature, too, and dreaded lest he should be forced into opposing his father.

  It struck her that she might herself act as intermediary. She could certainly obtain concessions from Orsino which Giovanni could not hope to extract by force or stratagem. But the wisdom of her own proposal in the matter seemed unassailable. The business now in hand should be allowed to run its natural course before anything was done to break off the relations between Orsino and Del Ferice.

  In the evening she found an opportunity of speaking with Orsino in private. She repeated to him the details of her conversation with Giovanni during the drive in the afternoon.

  “My dear mother,” answered Orsino, “I do not trust Del Ferice any more than you and my father trust him. You talk of things which he did years ago, but you do not tell me what those things were. So far as I understand, it all happened before you were married. My father and he quarrelled about something, and I suppose there was a lady concerned in the matter. Unless you were the lady in question, and unless what he did was in the nature of an insult to you, I cannot see how the matter concerns me. They fought and it ended there, as affairs of honour do. If it touched you, then tell me so, and I will break with Del Ferice to-morrow morning.”

  Corona was silent, for Orsino’s speech was very plain, and if she answered it all, the answer must be the truth. There could be no escape from that. And the truth would be very hard to tell. At that time she had been still the wife of old Astrardente, and Del Ferice’s offence had been that he had purposely concealed himself in the conservatory of the Frangipan’s palace in order to overhear what Giovanni Saracinesca was about to say to another man’s wife. The fact that on that memorable night she had bravely resisted a very great temptation did not affect the difficulty of the present case in any way. She asked herself rather whether Del Ferice’s eavesdropping would appear to Orsino to be in the nature of an insult to her, to use his own words, and she had no doubt but that it would seem so. At the same time she would find hard to explain to her son why Del Ferice suspected that there was to be anything said to her worth overhearing, seeing that she bore at that time the name of another man then still living. How could Orsino understand all that had gone before? Even now, though she knew that she had acted well, she humbly believed that she might have done much better. How would her son judge her? She was silent, waiting for him to speak again.

  “That would be the only conceivable reason for my breaking with Del Ferice,” said Orsino. “We only have business relations, and I do not go to his house. I went once. I saw no reason for telling you so at the time, and I have not been there again. It was at the beginning of the whole affair. Outside of the bank, we are the merest acquaintances. But I repeat what I said. If he ever did anything which makes it dishonourable for me to accept even ordinary business services from him, let me know it. I have some right to hear the truth.”

  Corona hesitated, and laid the case again before her own conscience, and tried to imagine herself in her son’s position. It was hard to reach a conclusion. There was no doubt but that when she had learned the truth, long after the event, she had felt that she had been insulted and justly avenged. If she said nothing now, Orsino would suspect something and would assuredly go to his father, from whom he would get a view of the case not conspicuous for its moderation. And Giovanni would undoubtedly tell his son the details of what had followed, how Del Ferice had attempted to hinder the marriage when it was at last possible, and all the rest of the story. At the same time, she felt that so far as her personal sensibilities were concerned, she had not the least objection to the continuance of a mere business relation between Orsino and Del Ferice. She was more forgiving than Giovanni.

  “I will tell you this much, my dear boy,” she said, at last. “That old quarrel did concern me and no one else. Your father feels more strongly about it than I do, because he fought for me and not for himself. You trust me, Orsino. You know that I would rather see you dead than doing anything dishonourable. Very well. Do not ask any more ques
tions, and do not go to your father about it. Del Ferice has only advanced you money, in a business way, on good security and at a high interest. So far as I can judge of the point of honour involved, what happened long ago need not prevent your doing what you are doing now. Possibly, when you have finished the present contract, you may think it wiser to apply to some other bank, or to work on your own account with my money.”

  Corona believed that she had found the best way out of the difficulty, and Orsino seemed satisfied, for he nodded thoughtfully and said nothing. The day had been filled with argument and discussion about his determination to stay in town, and he was weary of the perpetual question and answer. He knew his mother well, and was willing to take her advice for the present. She, on her part, told Giovanni what she had done, and he consented to consider the matter a little longer before interfering. He disliked even the idea of a business relation extremely, but he feared that there was more behind the appearances of commercial fairness than either he or Orsino himself could understand. The better Orsino succeeded, the less his father was pleased, and his suspicions were not unfounded. He knew from San Giacinto that success was becoming uncommon, and he knew that all Orsino’s industry and energy could not have sufficed to counterbalance his inexperience. Andrea Contini, too, had been recommended by Del Ferice, and was presumably Del Ferice’s man.

  On the following day Giovanni and Corona with the three younger boys went up to Saracinesca leaving Orsino alone in the great palace, to his own considerable satisfaction. He was well pleased with himself and especially at having carried his point. At his age, and with his constitution, the heat was a matter of supreme indifference to him, and he looked forward with delight to a summer of uninterrupted work in the not uncongenial society of Andrea Contini. As for the work itself, it was beginning to have a sort of fascination for him as he understood it better. The love of building, the passion for stone and brick and mortar, is inherent in some natures, and is capable of growing into a mania little short of actual insanity. Orsino began to ask himself seriously whether it were too late to study architecture as a profession and in the meanwhile he learned more of it in practice from Contini than he could have acquired in twice the time at any polytechnic school in Europe.

  He liked Contini himself more and more as the days went by. Hitherto he had been much inclined to judge his own countrymen from his own class. He was beginning to see that he had understood little or nothing of the real Italian nature when uninfluenced by foreign blood. The study interested and pleased him. Only one unpleasant memory occasionally disturbed his peace of mind. When he thought of his last meeting with Maria Consuelo he hated himself for the part he had played, though he was quite unable to account logically, upon his assumed principles, for the severity of his self-condemnation.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  ORSINO NECESSARILY LED a monotonous life, though, his occupation was an absorbing one. Very early in the morning he was with Contini where the building was going on. He then passed the hot hours of the day in the office, which, as before, had been established in one of the unfinished houses. Towards evening, he went down into the city to his home, refreshed himself after his long day’s work, and then walked or drove until half past eight, when he went to dinner in the garden of a great restaurant in the Corso. Here he met a few acquaintances who, like himself, had reasons for staying in town after their families had left. He always sat at the same small table, at which there was barely room for two persons, for he preferred to be alone, and he rarely asked a passing friend to sit down with him.

  On a certain hot evening in the beginning of August he had just taken his seat, and was trying to make up his mind whether he were hungry enough to eat anything or whether it would not be less trouble to drink a glass of iced coffee and go away, when he was aware of a lank shadow cast across the white cloth by the glaring electric light. He looked up and saw Spicca standing there, apparently uncertain where to sit down for the place was fuller than usual. He liked the melancholy old man and spoke to him, offering to share his table.

  Spicca hesitated a moment and then accepted the invitation. He deposited his hat upon a chair beside him and leaned back, evidently exhausted either in mind or body, if not in both.

  “I am very much obliged to you, my dear Orsino,” he said. “There is an abominable crowd here, which means an unusual number of people to avoid — just as many as I know, in fact, excepting yourself.”

  “I am glad you do not wish to avoid me, too,” observed Orsino, by way of saying something.

  “You are a less evil — so I choose you in preference to the greater,” Spicca answered. But there was a not unkindly look in his sunken eyes as he spoke.

  He tipped the great flask of Chianti that hung in its swinging plated cradle in the middle of the table, and filled two glasses.

  “Since all that is good has been abolished, let us drink to the least of evils,” he said, “in other words, to each other.”

  “To the absence of friends,” answered Orsino, touching the wine with his lips.

  Spicca emptied his glass slowly and then looked at him.

  “I like that toast,” he said. “To the absence of friends. I daresay you have heard of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Do they still teach the dear old tale in these modern schools? No. But you have heard it — very well. You will remember that if they had not allowed the serpent to scrape acquaintance with them, on pretence of a friendly interest in their intellectual development, Adam and Eve would still be inventing names for the angelic little wild beasts who were too well-behaved to eat them. They would still be in paradise. Moreover Orsino Saracinesca and John Nepomucene Spicca would not be in daily danger of poisoning in this vile cookshop. Summary ejection from Eden was the first consequence of friendship, and its results are similar to this day. What nauseous mess are we to swallow to-night? Have you looked at the card?”

  Orsino laughed a little. He foresaw that Spicca would not be dull company on this particular evening. Something unusually disagreeable had probably happened to him during the day. After long and melancholy hesitation he ordered something which he believed he could eat, and Orsino followed his example.

  “Are all your people out of town?” Spicca asked, after a pause.

  “Yes. I am alone.”

  “And what in the world is the attraction here? Why do you stay? I do not wish to be indiscreet, and I was never afflicted with curiosity. But cases of mental alienation grow more common every day, and as an old friend of your father’s I cannot overlook symptoms of madness in you. A really sane person avoids Rome in August.”

  “It strikes me that I might say the same to you,” answered Orsino. “I am kept here by business. You have not even that excuse.”

  “How do you know?” asked Spicca, sharply. “Business has two main elements — credit and debit. The one means the absence of the other. I leave it to your lively intelligence to decide which of the two means Rome in August, and which means Trouville or St. Moritz.”

  “I had not thought of it in that light.”

  “No? I daresay not. I constantly think of it.”

  “There are other places, nearer than St. Moritz,” suggested Orsino. “Why not go to Sorrento?”

  “There was such a place once — but my friends have found it out. Nevertheless, I might go there. It is better to suffer friendship in the spirit than fever in the body. But I have a reason for staying here just at present — a very good one.”

  “Without indiscretion — ?”

  “No, certainly not without considerable indiscretion. Take some more wine. When intoxication is bliss it is folly to be sober, as the proverb says. I cannot get tipsy, but you may, and that will be almost as amusing. The main object of drinking wine is that one person should make confidences for the other to laugh at — the one enjoys it quite as much as the other.”

  “I would rather be the other,” said Orsino with a laugh.

  “In all cases in life it is better to be the other person
,” observed Spicca, thoughtfully, though the remark lacked precision.

  “You mean the patient and not the agent, I suppose?”

  “No. I mean the spectator. The spectator is a well fed, indifferent personage who laughs at the play and goes home to supper — perdition upon him and his kind! He is the abomination of desolation in a front stall, looking on while better men cut one another’s throats. He is a fat man with a pink complexion and small eyes, and when he has watched other people’s troubles long enough, he retires to his comfortable vault in the family chapel in the Campo Varano, which is decorated with coloured tiles, embellished with a modern altar piece and adorned with a bust of himself by a good sculptor. Even in death, he is still the spectator, grinning through the window of his sanctuary at the rows of nameless graves outside. He is happy and self-satisfied still — even in marble. It is worth living to be such a man.”

  “It is not an exciting life,” remarked Orsino.

  “No. That is the beauty of it. Look at me. I have never succeeded in imitating that well-to-do, thoroughly worthy villain. I began too late. Take warning, Orsino. You are young. Grow fat and look on — then you will die happy. All the philosophy of life is there. Farinaceous food, money and a wife. That is the recipe. Since you have money you can purchase the gruel and the affections. Waste no time in making the investment.”

  “I never heard you advocate marriage before. You seem to have changed your mind, of late.”

  “Not in the least. I distinguish between being married and taking a wife, that is all.”

  “Rather a fine distinction.”

  “The only difference between a prisoner and his gaoler is that they are on opposite sides of the same wall. Take some more wine. We will drink to the man on the outside.”

  “May you never be inside,” said Orsino.

  Spicca emptied his glass and looked at him, as he set it down again.

  “May you never know what it is to have been inside,” he said.