He thought of all his acquaintance and came to the conclusion that he was in reality in terms more closely approaching to friendship with Andrea Contini than with any man of his own class. Yet he would have hesitated to call the architect his friend, as he would have found it impossible to confide in him concerning any detail of his own private life.
At a time when most young men are making friends, Orsino had been hindered, from the formation of such ties by the two great interests which had absorbed his existence, his attachment and subsequent love for Maria Consuelo, and the business at which he had worked so steadily. He had lost Maria Consuelo, in whom he would have confided as he had often done before, and at the present important juncture he stood quite alone.
He felt that he was no match for Del Ferice. The keen banker was making use of him for his own purposes in a way which neither Orsino nor Contini had ever suspected. It could not be supposed that Ugo had foreseen from the first the advantage he might reap from the firm he had created and which was so wholly dependent on him. Orsino might have turned out ignorant and incapable. Contini might have proved idle and even dishonest. But, instead of this, the experiment had succeeded admirably and Ugo found himself possessed of an instrument, as it were, precisely adapted to his end, which was to make worthless property valuable at the smallest possible expense, in fact, at the lowest cost price. He had secured a first-rate architect and a first-rate accountant, both men of spotless integrity, both young, energetic and unusually industrious. He paid nothing for their services and he entirely controlled their expenditure. It was clear that he would do his utmost to maintain an arrangement so immensely profitable to himself. If Orsino had realised exactly how profitable it was, he might have forced Del Ferice to share the gain with him, and would have done so for the sake of Contini, if not for his own. He suspected, indeed, that Ugo was certain beforehand, in each case, of selling or letting the houses, but he had no proof of the fact. Ugo did not leave everything to his confidential clerk, and the secrets he kept to himself were well kept.
Orsino consulted Contini, as a matter of necessity, before accepting Del Ferice’s last offer. The architect went into a tragic-comic rage, bit his cigar through several times, ground his teeth, drank several glasses of cold water, talked of the blood of Cola di Rienzo, vowed vengeance on Del Ferice and finally submitted.
The signing of the new contract determined the course of Orsino’s life for another year. It is surprising to see, in the existence of others, how periods of monotonous calm succeed seasons of storm and danger. In our own they do not astonish us so much, if at all. Orsino continued to work hard, to live regularly and to do all those things which, under the circumstances he ought to have done and earned the reputation of being a model young man, a fact which surprised him on one or two occasions when it came to his ears. Yet when he reflected upon it, he saw that he was in reality not like other young men, and that his conduct was undoubtedly abnormally good as viewed by those around him. His grandfather began to look upon him as something almost unnatural, and more than once hinted to Giovanni that the boy, as he still called him, ought to behave like other boys.
“He is more like San Giacinto than any of us,” said Giovanni, thoughtfully. “He has taken after that branch.”
“If that is the case, he might have done worse,” answered the old man. “I like San Giacinto. But you always judge superficially, Giovanni — you always did. And the worst of it is, you are always perfectly well satisfied with your own judgments.”
“Possibly. I have certainly not accepted those of others.”
“And the result is that you are turning into an oyster — and Orsino has begun to turn into an oyster, too, and the other boys will follow his example — a perfect oyster-bed! Go and take Orsino by the throat and shake him—”
“I regret to say that I am physically not equal to that feat,” said Giovanni with a laugh.
“I should be!” exclaimed the aged Prince, doubling his hard hand and bringing it down on the table, while his bright eyes gleamed. “Go and shake him, and tell him to give up this dirty building business — make him give it up, buy him out of it, put plenty of money into his pockets and send him off to amuse himself! You and Corona have made a prig of him, and business is making an oyster of him, and he will be a hopeless idiot before you realise it! Stir him, shake him, make him move! I hate your furniture-man — who is always in the right place and always ready to be sat upon!”
“If you can persuade him to give up affairs I have no objection.”
“Persuade him! I never knew a man worth speaking to who could be persuaded to anything he did not like. Make him — that is the way.”
“But since he is behaving himself and is occupied — that is better than the lives all these young fellows are leading.”
“Do not argue with me, Giovanni, I hate it. Besides, your reason is worth nothing at all. Did I spend my youth over accounts, in the society of an architect? Did I put water in my wine and sit up like a model little boy at my papa’s table and spend my evenings in carrying my mamma’s fan? Nonsense! And yet all that was expected in my day, in a way it is not expected now. Look at yourself. You are bad enough — dull enough, I mean. Did you waste the best years of your life in counting bricks and measuring mortar?”
“You say that you hate argument, and yet you are arguing. But Orsino shall please himself, as I did, and in his own way. I will certainly not interfere.”
“Because you know you can do nothing with him!” retorted old Saracinesca contemptuously.
Giovanni laughed. Twenty years earlier he would have lost his temper to no purpose. But twenty years of unruffled existence had changed him.
“You are not the man you were,” grumbled his father.
“No. I have been too happy, far too long, to be much like what I was at thirty.”
“And do you mean to say I am not happy, and have not been happy, and do not mean to be happy, and do not wish everybody to be happy, so long as this old machine hangs together? What nonsense you talk, my boy. Go and make love to your wife. That is all you are fit for!”
Discussions of this kind were not unfrequent but of course led to nothing. As a matter of fact Sant’ Ilario was quite right in believing interference useless. It would have been impossible. He was no more able to change Orsino’s determination than he was physically capable of shaking him. Not that Sant’ Ilario was weak, physically or morally, nor ever had been. But his son had grown up to be stronger than he.
Twelve months passed away. During that time the young man worked, as he had worked before, regularly and untiringly. But his object now was to free himself, and he no longer hoped to make a fortune or to do any thing beyond the strict execution of the contract he had in hand, determined if possible to avoid taking another. With a coolness and self-denial beyond his years, he systematically hoarded the allowance he received from his father, in order to put together a sum of money for poor Contini. He made economies everywhere, refused to go into society and spent his evenings in reading. His acquired manner stood him in good stead, but he could not bear more than a limited amount of the daily talk in the family. Being witty, rather than gay, if he could be said to be either, he found himself inclined rather to be bitter than amusing when he was wearied by the monotonous conversation of others. He knew this to be a mistake and controlled himself, taking refuge in solitude and books when he could control himself no longer.
Whether he loved Maria Consuelo still, or not, it was clear that he was not inclined to love any one else for the present. The tolerably harmless dissipation and wildness of the two or three years he had spent in England could not account for such a period of coldness as followed his separation from Maria Consuelo. He had by no means exhausted the pleasures of life and his capacity for enjoyment could not even be said to have reached its height. But he avoided the society of women even more consistently than he shunned the club and the card table.
More than a year had gone by since he had heard
from Maria Consuelo. He met Spicca from time to time, looking now as though he had not a day to live, but neither of them mentioned past events. The Romans had talked a little of her sudden change of plans, for it had been known that she had begun to furnish a large apartment for the winter of the previous year, and had then very unaccountably changed her mind and left the place in the hands of an agent to be sub-let. People said she had lost her fortune. Then she had been forgotten in the general disaster that followed, and no one had taken the trouble to remember her since then. Even Gouache, who had once been so enthusiastic over her portrait, did not seem to know or care what had become of her. Once only, and quite accidentally, Orsino had authentic information of her whereabouts. He took up an English society journal one evening and glanced idly over the paragraphs. Maria Consuelo’s name arrested his attention. A certain very high and mighty old lady of royal lineage was about to travel in Egypt during the winter. “Her Royal Highness,” said the paper, “will be accompanied by the Countess d’Aranjuez d’Aragona.” Orsino’s hand shook a little as he laid the sheet aside, and he was pale when he rose a few moments later and went off to his own room. He could not help wondering why Maria Consuelo was styled by a title to which she certainly had a legal right, but which she had never before used, and he wondered still more why she travelled in Egypt with an old princess who was generally said to be anything but an agreeable companion, and was reported to be quite deaf. But on the whole he thought little of the information itself. It was the sight of Maria Consuelo’s name which had moved him, and he was not altogether himself for several days. The impression wore off before long, and he followed the round of his monotonous life as before.
Early in the month of March in the year 1890, he was seated alone in his room one evening before dinner. The great contract he had undertaken was almost finished, and he knew that within two months he would be placed in the same difficult position from which he had formerly so signally failed to extricate himself. That he and Contini had executed the terms of the contract with scrupulous and conscientious nicety did not better the position. That they had made the most strenuous efforts to find purchasers for the property, as they had a right to do if they could, and had failed, made the position hopeless or almost as bad as that. Whether they liked it or not, Del Ferice had so arranged that the great mass of their acceptances should fall due about the time when the work would be finished. To mortgage on the same terms or anything approaching the same terms with any other bank was out of the question, so that they had no hope of holding the property for the purpose of leasing it. Even if Orsino could have contemplated for a moment such an act of bad faith as wilfully retarding the work in order to gain a renewal of the bills, such a course could have led to no actual improvement in the situation. The property was unsaleable and Del Ferice knew it, and had no intention of selling it. He meant to keep it for himself and let it, as a permanent source of income. It would not have cost him in the end one half of its actual value, and was exceptionally good property. Orsino saw how hopeless it was to attempt resistance, unless he would resign himself to voting an appeal to his own people, and this, as of old, he was resolved not to do.
He was reflecting upon his life of bondage when a servant brought him a letter. He tossed it aside without looking at it, but it chanced to slip from the polished table and fall to the ground. As he picked it up his attention was arrested by the handwriting and by the stamp. The stamp was Egyptian and the writing was that of Maria Consuelo. He started, tore open the envelope and took out a letter of many pages, written on thin paper. At first he found it hard to follow the characters, and his heart beat at a rate which annoyed him. He rose, walked the length of the room and back again, sat down in another seat close to the lamp and read the letter steadily from beginning to end.
“My Dear Friend — You may, perhaps, be surprised at hearing from me
after so long a time. I received your last letter. How long ago was
that? Twelve, fourteen, fifteen months? I do not know. It is as
well to forget, since I at least would rather not remember what you
wrote. And I write now — why? Simply because I have the impulse to
do so. That is the best of all reasons. I wish to hear from you,
which is selfish; and I wish to hear about you, which is not. Are
you still working at that business in which you were so much
interested? Or have you given it up and gone back to the life you
used to hate so thoroughly? I would like to know. Do you remember
how angry I was long ago, because you agreed to meet Del Ferice in
my drawing-room? I was very wrong, for the meeting led to many good
results. I like to think that you are not quite like all the young
men of your set, who do nothing — and cannot even do that
gracefully. I think you used those very words about yourself, once
upon a time. But you proved that you could live a very different
life if you chose. I hope you are living it still.
“And so poor Donna Tullia is dead — has been dead a year and a half!
I wrote Del Ferice a long letter when I got the news. He answered
me. He is not as bad as you used to think, for he was terribly
pained by his loss — I could see that well enough in what he wrote
though there was nothing exaggerated or desperate in the phrases.
In fact there were no phrases at all. I wish I had kept the letter
to send to you, but I never keep letters. Poor Donna Tullia! I
cannot imagine Rome without her. It would certainly not be the same
place to me, for she was uniformly kind and thoughtful where I was
concerned, whatever she may have been to others.
“Echoes reach me from time to time in different parts of the world,
as I travel, and Rome seems to be changed in many ways. They say
the ruin was dreadful when the crash came. I suppose you gave up
business then, as was natural, since they say there is no more
business to do. But I would be glad to know that nothing
disagreeable happened to you in the financial storm. I confess to
having felt an unaccountable anxiety about you of late. Perhaps
that is why I write and why I hope for an answer at once. I have
always looked upon presentiments and forewarnings and all such
intimations as utterly false and absurd, and I do not really
believe that anything has happened or is happening to distress you.
But it is our woman’s privilege to be inconsistent, and we should
be still more inconsistent if we did not use it. Besides I have
felt the same vague disquietude about you more than once before and
have not written. Perhaps I should not write even now unless I had
a great deal more time at my disposal than I know what to do with.
Who knows? If you are busy, write a word on a post-card, just to
say that nothing is the matter. Here in Egypt we do not realise
what time means, and certainly not that it can ever mean money.
“It is an idle life, less idle for me perhaps than for some of
those about me, but even for me not over-full of occupations. The
climate occupies all the time not actually spent in eating,
sleeping and visiting ruins. It is fair, I suppose, to tell you
something of myself since I ask for news of you. I will tell you
what I can.
“I am travelling with an old lady, as her companion — not exactly
out of inclination and yet not exactly out of duty. Is that too
mysterious? Do you see me as Companion and general amuser to an old
lady — over seventy years of age? No. I presume not. And I am not
with her by necessity either, for I have not suffer
ed any losses.
On the contrary, since I dismissed a certain person — an attendant,
we will call her — from my service, it seems to me that my income is
doubled. The attendant, by the bye, has opened a hotel on the Lake
of Como. Perhaps you, who are so good a man of business, may see
some connexion between these simple facts. I was never good at
managing money, nor at understanding what it meant. It seems that I
have not inherited all the family talents.
“But I return to Egypt, to the Nile, to this dahabiyah, on board of
which it has pleased the fates to dispose my existence for the
present. I am not called a companion, but a lady in waiting, which
would be only another term for the same thing, if I were not really
very much attached to the Princess, old and deaf as she is. And
that is saying a great deal. No one knows what deafness means who
has not read aloud to a deaf person, which is what I do every day.
I do not think I ever told you about her. I have known her all my
life, ever since I was a little girl in the convent in Vienna. She
used to come and see me and bring me good things — and books of
prayers — I remember especially a box of candied fruits which she
told me came from Kiew. I have never eaten any like them since. I
wonder how many sincere affections between young and old people owe
their existence originally to a confectioner!
“When I left Rome, I met her again in Nice. She was there with the
Prince, who was in wretched health and who died soon afterwards. He
never was so fond of me as she was. After his death, she asked me
to stay with her as long as I would. I do not think I shall leave
her again so long as she lives. She treats me like her own
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 572