“Will you remember?” she repeated.
“I shall never forget,” he answered, not quite steadily,
By one of those miracles which are the birthright of certain women, she had made her dress look almost fresh again. The fawn-coloured hat was restored to its shape, or nearly. The mud that had soiled her skirt had dried and she had brushed it away, though it had left faint spots on the cloth, here and there; pins hid the little rents so cleverly that only a woman’s eye could have detected anything wrong, and the russet shoes were tolerably presentable. The Baroness saw traces of the adventure to which the costume had been exposed, but Volterra smiled and was less inclined than ever to believe the story which both had told, though he did not say so.
“My wife and I,” he said cordially, “quite understand what has happened, and no one shall ever know about it, unless you speak of it yourself. She will go home with you now, and will then take you to the Russian Embassy to see your mother.”
Sabina looked at him in surprise, for she had expected a disagreeable scene. Then she glanced at the Baroness’s sallow and angry face, and she partly understood the position.
“Thank you,” she said proudly, “but if you do not mind, I will go to my mother directly. You will perhaps be so kind as to have my things sent to the Embassy, or my mother’s maid will come and get them.”
“You cannot go looking like that,” said the Baroness severely.
“On the contrary,” Volterra interposed, “I think that considering your dangerous adventure, you look perfectly presentable. Of course, we quite understand that as the Princess has returned, you should wish to go back to her at once, though we are very sorry to let you go.”
Sabina paused a moment before answering. Then she spoke to the Baroness, only glancing at Volterra.
“Until to-day, you have been very kind to me,” she said with an effort. “I thank you for your kindness, and I am sorry that you think so badly of me.”
“My dear young lady,” cried the Baron, lying with hearty cordiality, “you are much mistaken! I assure you, it was only a momentary misapprehension on the part of my wife, who had not even spoken with Signor Malipieri. His explanation has been more than satisfactory. Is it not so, my dear?” he asked, turning to the Baroness for confirmation of his fluent assurances.
“Of course,” she answered, half choking, and with a face like thunder; but she dared not disobey.
“If my mother says anything about my frock, I shall tell her the whole story,” said Sabina, glancing at her skirt.
“If you do,” said the Baroness, “I shall deny it from beginning to end.”
“I think that it would perhaps be wiser to explain that in some other way,” the Baron suggested. “Signor Malipieri, will you be so very kind as to go down first, and take the porter with a light to the entrance of the cellars? He knows Donna Sabina, you see. I will come down presently, for I shall stay behind and ask the detective to look out of the window in the next room, while my wife and Donna Sabina pass through. In that way we shall be quite sure that she will not be recognized. Will you do that, Signor Malipieri? Unless you have a better plan to suggest, of course.”
Malipieri saw that the plan was simple and apparently safe. He looked once more at Sabina, and she smiled, and just bent her head, but said nothing. He left the room. The detective was sitting in a corner of the room beyond, and the two men exchanged a silent nod as Malipieri passed.
Everything was arranged as the Baron had planned, and ten minutes later the Baroness and Sabina descended the stairs together in silence and reached the great entrance. The two soldiers were standing by the open door of the lodge, and saluted in military fashion. Gigi, the carpenter, sprang forward and opened the postern door, touching his paper cap to the ladies.
They did not exchange a word as they walked to the Piazza Sant’ Apollinare to find a cab. Sabina held her head high and looked straight before her, and the Baroness’s invisible silk bellows were distinctly audible in the quiet street.
“By the hour,” said the Baroness, as they got into the first cab they reached on the stand. “Go to the Russian Embassy, in the Corso.”
CHAPTER XIX
“SO YOU SPENT last night in the rooms of a man you have not seen half a dozen times,” said the Princess, speaking with a cigarette in her mouth. “And what is worse, those dreadful Volterra people found you there. No Conti ever had any common sense!”
What Sabina had foreseen had happened. Her mother had looked her over, from head to foot, to see what sort of condition she was in, as a horse-dealer looks over a promising colt he has not seen for some time; and the Princess had instantly detected the signs of an accident. In answer to her question Sabina told the truth. Her mother had watched her face and her innocent eyes while she was telling the story, and needed no other confirmation.
“You are a good girl,” she continued, as Sabina did not reply to the last speech. “But you are a little fool. I wonder why my children are all idiots! I am not so stupid after all. I suppose it must have been your poor father.”
The white lids closed thoughtfully over her magnificent eyes, and opened again after a moment, as if she had called up a vision of her departed husband and had sent it away again.
“I suppose it was silly of me to go at all,” Sabina admitted, leaning back in her chair. “But I wanted so much to see the statues!”
She felt at home. Her mother had brought her up badly and foolishly, and of late had neglected her shamefully. Sabina knew that and neither loved her nor respected her, and it was not because she was her mother that the girl felt suddenly at ease in her presence, as she never could feel with the Baroness. She did not wish to be at all like her mother in character, or even in manner, and yet she felt that they belonged to the same kind, spoke the same language, and had an instinctive understanding of each other, though these things implied neither mutual respect nor affection.
“That horrible old Volterra!” said the Princess, with emphasis. “He means to keep everything he has found, for himself, if he can. I have come only just in time.”
Sabina did not answer. She knew nothing of the law, and though she fancied that she might have some morally just claim to a share in the treasure, she had never believed that it could be proved.
“Of course,” the Princess continued, smoking thoughtfully, “there is only one thing to be done. You must marry this Malipieri at once, whether you like him or not. What sort of man is he?”
The faint colour rose in Sabina’s cheeks and not altogether at the mere thought of marrying Malipieri; she was hurt by the way her mother spoke of him.
“What kind of man is he?” the Princess repeated, “I suppose he is a Venetian, a son of the man who married the Gradenigo heiress, about the time when I was married myself. Is he the man who discovered Troy?”
“Carthage, I think,” said Sabina.
“Troy, Carthage, America, it is all the same. He discovered something, and I fancy he will be rich. But what is he like? Dark, fair, good, bad, snuffy or smart? As he is an archaeologist, he must be snuffy, a bore, probably, and what the English call a male frump. It cannot be helped, my dear! You will have to marry him. Describe him to me.”
“He is dark,” said Sabina.
“I am glad of that. I always liked dark men — your father was fair, like you. Besides, as you are a blonde, you will always look better beside a dark husband. But of course he is dreadfully careless, with long hair and doubtful nails. All those people are.”
“No,” said Sabina. “He is very nice-looking and neat, and wears good clothes.”
The Princess’s brow cleared.
“All the better,” she said. “Well, my dear, it is not so bad after all. We have found a husband for you, rich, of good family — quite as good as yours, my child! Good-looking, smart — what more do you expect? Besides, he cannot possibly refuse to marry you after what has happened. On the whole, I think your adventure has turned out rather well. You can be married in a mon
th. Every one will think it quite natural that it should have been kept quiet until I came, you see.”
“But even if I wanted to marry him, he will never ask for me,” objected Sabina, who was less surprised than might be expected, for she knew her mother thoroughly.
The Princess laughed, and blew a cloud of smoke from her lips, and then showed her handsome teeth.
“I have only to say the word,” she answered. “When a young girl of our world has spent the night in a man’s rooms, he marries her, if her family wishes it. No man of honour can possibly refuse. I suppose that this Malipieri is a gentleman?”
“Indeed he is!” Sabina spoke with considerable indignation.
“Precisely. Then he will come to me this afternoon and tell his story frankly, just as you have done — it was very sensible of you, my dear — and he will offer to marry you. Of course I shall accept.”
“But, mother,” cried Sabina, aghast at the suddenness of the conclusion, “I am not at all sure—”
She stopped, feeling that she was much more sure of being in love with Malipieri than she had been when she had driven to the palace with Sassi on the previous afternoon.
“Is there any one you like better?” asked the Princess sharply. “Are you in love with any one else?”
“No! But—”
“I had never seen your father when our marriage was arranged,” the Princess observed.
“And you were very unhappy together,” Sabina answered promptly. “You always say so.”
“Oh, unhappy? I am not so sure, now. Certainly Hot nearly so miserable as half the people I know. After all, what is happiness, child? Doing what you please, is it not?”
Sabina had not thought of this definition, and she laughed, without accepting it. In one way, everything looked suddenly bright and cheerful, since her mother had believed her story, and she knew that she was not to go back to the Baroness, who had not believed her at all, and had called her bad names.
“And I almost always did as I pleased,” the Princess continued, after a moment’s reflection. “The only trouble was that your dear father did not always like what I did. He was a very religious man. That was what ruined us. He gave half his income to charities and then scolded me because I could not live on the other half. Besides, he turned the Ten Commandments into a hundred. It was a perfect multiplication, table of things one was not to do.”
Poor Sabina’s recollections of her father had nothing of affection in them, and she did not feel called upon to defend his memory. Like many weak but devout men, he had been severe to his children, even to cruelty, while perfectly incapable of controlling his wife’s caprices.
“I remember, though I was only a little girl when he died,” Sabina said.
“Is Malipieri very religious?” the Princess asked “I mean, does he make a fuss about having fish on Fridays?” She spoke quite gravely.
“I fancy not,” Sabina answered, seeing nothing odd in her mother’s implied definition of righteousness. “He never talked to me about religion, I am sure.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed the Princess devoutly.
“He always says he is a republican,” Sabina remarked, glad to talk about him.
“Really?” The Princess was interested. “I adore revolutionaries,” she said thoughtfully. “They always have something to say. I have always longed to meet a real anarchist.”
“Signor Malipieri is not an anarchist,” said Sabina.
“Of course not, child! I never said he was. All anarchists are shoemakers or miners, or something like that. I only said that I always longed to meet one. People who do not value their lives are generally amusing. When I was a girl, I was desperately in love with a cousin of mine who drove a four-in-hand down a flight of steps, and won a bet by jumping on a wild bear’s back. He was always doing those things. I loved him dearly.” The Princess laughed.
“What became of him?” Sabina asked.
“He shot himself one day in Geneva, poor boy, because he was bored. I was always sorry, though they would not have let me marry him, because he had lost all his money at cards.” The Princess sighed. “Of course you want a lot of new clothes, my dear,” she said, changing the subject rather suddenly. “Have you nothing but that to wear?”
Sabina’s things had not yet come from the Via Ludovisi. She explained that she had plenty of clothes.
“I fancy they are nothing but rags,” her mother answered incredulously. “We shall have to go to Paris in any case for your trousseau. You cannot get anything here.”
“But we have no money,” objected Sabina.
“As if that made any difference! We can always get money, somehow. What a child you are!”
Sabina said nothing, for she knew that her mother always managed to have what she wanted, even when it looked quite impossible. The girl had been brought up in the atmosphere of perpetual debt and borrowing which seemed natural to the Princess, and nothing of that sort surprised her, though it was all contrary to her own instinctively conscientious and honourable nature.
Her mother had always been a mystery to her, and now, as Sabina sat near her, she crossed her feet, which were encased in a pair of the Princess’s slippers, and looked at her as she had often looked before, wondering how such a reckless, scatter-brained, almost penniless woman could have remained the great personage which the world always considered her to be, and that, too, without the slightest effort on her part to maintain her position.
Then Sabina reflected upon the Baroness’s existence, which was one long struggle to reach a social elevation not even remotely rivalling that of the Princess Conti; a struggle in which she was armed with a large fortune, with her husband’s political power, with the most strictly virtuous views of life, and an iron will; a struggle which could never raise her much beyond the point she had already reached.
Sabina’s meditations were soon interrupted by the arrival of her belongings, in charge of her mother’s maid, and the immediate necessity of dressing more carefully than had been possible when she had been so rudely roused by the Baroness. She was surprised to find herself so little tired by the desperate adventure, and without even a cold as the result of the never-to-be-forgotten chill she had felt in the vaults.
In the afternoon, the Princess declared that she would not go out. She was sure that Malipieri would present himself, and she would receive him in her boudoir. The ambassador had given her a very pretty set of rooms. He was a bachelor, and was of course delighted to have her stay with him, and still more pleased that her pretty daughter should join her. It was late in the season, he was detained in Rome by an international complication, and he looked upon the arrival of the two guests as a godsend, more especially as the Princess was an old acquaintance of his and the wife of an intimate friend. Nothing could have been more delightful, and everything was for the best. The Princess herself felt that fortune was shining upon her, for she never doubted that she could lay hands on some of the money which the statues would bring, and she was sure, at least, of marrying Sabina extremely well in a few weeks, which was an advantage not to be despised.
During the hours that followed her first conversation with her mother, Sabina found time to reflect upon her own future, and the more she thought of it, the more rosy it seemed. She was sure that Malipieri loved her, though he had certainly not told her so yet, and she was sure that she had never met a man whom she liked half so much. It was true that she had not met many, and none at all in even such intimacy as had established itself between him and her at their very first meeting; but that mattered little, and last night she had seen him as few women ever see a man, fighting for her life and his own for hours together, and winning in the end. Indeed, had she known it, their situation had been really desperate, for while Masin was in prison and in ignorance of what had happened, and Sassi lying unconscious at the hospital after a fall that had nearly killed him outright, it was doubtful whether any one else could have guessed that they were in the vaults or would have been able to g
et them out alive, had it been known.
She had always expected to be married against her will by her mother, or at all events without any inclination on her own part. She had been taught that it was the way of the world, which it was better to accept. If the proposed husband had been a cripple, or an old man, she would have been capable of rebellion, of choosing the convent, of running away alone into the world, of almost anything. But if he had turned out to be an average individual, neither uglier, nor older, nor more repulsive than many others, she would probably have accepted her fate with indifference, or at least with the necessary resignation, especially if she had never met Malipieri. Instead of that, it was probably Malipieri whom she was to marry, the one of all others whom she had chosen for herself, and in place of a dreary existence, stretching out through endless blank years in the future, she saw a valley of light, carpeted with roses, opening suddenly in the wilderness to receive her and the man she loved.
It was no wonder that she smiled in her sleep as she lay resting in the warm afternoon, in her own room. Her mother had made her lie down, partly because she was still tired, and partly because it would be convenient that she should be out of the way if Malipieri came.
He came, as the Princess had expected, and between two and three o’clock, an hour at which he was almost sure to find her at home. From what Sabina had said to the Baroness in his presence, and from his judgment of the girl’s character, he felt certain that she would tell her mother the whole story at once. As they had acknowledged to each other in the vaults, they were neither of them good at inventing falsehoods, and Sabina would surely tell the truth. In the extremely improbable case that she had not been obliged to say anything about the events of the night, his visit would not seem at all out of place. He had seen a good deal of Sabina during her mother’s absence, and it was proper that he should present himself in order to make the Princess’s acquaintance.
He studied her face quickly as he came forward, and made up his mind that she expected him, though she looked up with an air of languid surprise as he entered. She leaned forward a little in her comfortable seat, and held out her plump hand.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1067