Privacy favours the growth of individual types, differing widely from each other; the destruction of it makes people very much alike. Marcello’s mother asked herself whether she had done well in rearing him as a being apart from those amongst whom he must spend his life.
And yet, as she looked at him, he seemed to be so nearly the ideal of which she had dreamt throughout long years of loving care that she was comforted, and the shadow passed away from her sweet face. He had answered that she could do nothing that was not right; she prayed that his words might be near the truth, and in her heart she was willing to believe that they were almost true. Had she not followed every good impulse of her own good heart? Had she not tried to realize literally for him the most beautiful possibilities of the Christian faith? That, at least, was true, and she could tell herself so without any mistaken pride. How, then, had she made any mistake? The boy had the face of a young saint.
“Are you ready, my dear?” she asked suddenly, as a far-off clock struck.
“Yes, mother, quite ready.”
“I am not,” she answered with a little laugh. “And Folco is waiting, and I hear the carriage driving up.”
She slipped from Marcello’s side and left the room quickly, for they were going to drive down to the sea, to a little shooting-lodge that belonged to them near Nettuno, a mere cottage among the trees by the Roman shore, habitable only in April and May, and useful only then, when the quail migrate along the coast and the malarious fever is not yet to be feared. It was there that Marcello had first learned to handle a gun, spending a week at a time there with his stepfather; and his mother used to come down now and then for a day or two on a visit, sometimes bringing her friend the Contessa dell’ Armi. The latter had been very unhappy in her youth, and had been left a widow with one beautiful girl and a rather exiguous fortune. Some people thought that it was odd that the Signora Corbario, who was a saint if ever there was one, should have grown so fond of the Contessa, for the latter had seen stormy days in years gone by; and of course the ill-disposed gossips made up their minds that the Contessa was trying to catch Marcello for her daughter Aurora, though the child was barely seventeen.
This was mere gossip, for she was quite incapable of any such scheme. What the gossips did not know was something which would have interested them much more, namely, that the Contessa was the only person in Rome who distrusted Folco Corbario, and that she was in constant fear lest she should turn out to be right, and lest her friend’s paradise should be suddenly changed into a purgatory. But she held her tongue, and her quiet face never betrayed her thoughts. She only watched, and noted from month to month certain small signs which seemed to prove her right; and she should be ready, whenever the time should come, by day or night, to help her friend, or comfort her, or fight for her.
If Corbario guessed that the Contessa did not trust him, he never showed it. He had found her installed as his wife’s friend, and had accepted her, treating her with much courtesy and a sort of vicarious affection; but though he tried his best he could not succeed in reaching anything like intimacy with her, and while she seemed to conceal nothing, he felt that she was hiding her real self from him. Whether she did so out of pride, or distrust, or jealousy, he could never be sure. He was secretly irritated and humiliated by her power to oppose him and keep him at a distance without ever seeming to do so; but, on the other hand, he was very patient, very tenacious of his purpose, and very skilful. He knew something of the Contessa’s past, but he recognised in her the nature that has known the world’s worst side and has done with it for ever, and is lifted above it, and he knew the immense influence which the spectacle of a blameless life exercises upon the opinion of a good woman who has not always been blameless herself. Whatever he had been before he met his wife, whatever strange plans had been maturing in his brain since he had married her, his life had seemed as spotless from that day as the existence of the best man living. His wife believed in him, and the Contessa did not; but even she must in time accept the evidence of her senses. Then she, too, would trust him. Why it was essential that she should, he alone knew, unless he was merely piqued by her quiet reserve, as a child is when it cannot fix the attention of a grown-up person.
The Contessa and her daughter were to be of the party that day, and the carriage stopped where they lived, near the Forum of Trajan. They appeared almost directly, the Contessa in grey with a grey veil and Aurora dressed in a lighter shade, the thick plaits of her auburn hair tied up short below her round straw hat, on the theory that she was still a school-girl, whose skirt must not quite touch the ground, who ought not to wear a veil, and whose mind was supposed to be a sensitive blank, particularly apt to receive bad impressions rather than good ones. In less than a year she would be dancing all night with men she had scarcely heard of before, listening to compliments of which she had never dreamt — of course not — and to declarations which no right-minded girl one day under eighteen could under any circumstances be thought to expect. Such miracles as these are wrought by the eighteenth birthday.
Corbario’s eyes looked from the mother to the daughter, as he and Marcello stood on the pavement to let them get in. The Contessa touched his outstretched hand without restraint but without cordiality, smiling just as much as was civil, and less readily than would have been friendly. Aurora glanced at him and laughed prettily without any apparent reason, which is the privilege of very young girls, because their minds are supposed to be a blank. Also because her skirt must not quite touch the ground, one very perfect black silk ankle was distinctly visible for a moment as she stepped into the carriage. Note that from the eve of her eighteenth birthday till she is old enough to be really wicked no well-regulated young woman shows her ankles. This also is one of the miracles of time.
Marcello blushed faintly as he sat down beside Aurora. There were now five in the big carriage, so that she was between the two men; and though there was enough room Marcello felt the slight pressure of her arm against his. His mother saw his colour change, and looked away and smiled. The idea of marrying the two in a few years had often crossed her mind, and she was pleased whenever she saw that Marcello felt a little thrill of emotion in the girl’s presence. As for Aurora, she looked straight before her, between the heads of the two elder women, and for a long time after they had started she seemed absorbed in watching the receding walls of the city and the long straight road that led back to it. The Contessa and her friend talked quietly, happy to be together for a whole day. Corbario now and then looked from one to the other, as if to assure himself that they were quite comfortable, and his still face wore an unchanging look of contented calm as his eyes turned again to the sunlit sweep of the low Campagna. Marcello looked steadily away from Aurora, happily and yet almost painfully aware that her arm could not help pressing against his. The horses’ hoofs beat rhythmically on the hard high road, with the steady, cheerful energy which would tell a blind man that a team is well fed, fresh from rest, and altogether fit for a long day’s work. The grey-haired coachman sat on his box like an old dragoon in the saddle; the young groom sat bolt upright beside him with folded arms, as if he could never tire of sitting straight. The whole party looked prosperous, harmonious, healthy, and perfectly happy, as if nothing in the least unpleasant could possibly happen to them, still less anything terrible, that could suddenly change all their lives.
One of fate’s favourite tricks is to make life look particularly gay and enjoyable, and full of sunshine and flowers, at the very moment when terror wakes from sleep and steps out of the shadow to stalk abroad.
The cottage where the party were going to spend the next few days together was built like an Indian bungalow, consisting of a single story surrounded by a broad, covered verandah, and having a bit of lawn in front. It was sheltered by trees, and between it and the beach a bank of sand from ten to fifteen feet high ran along the shore, the work of the southwest gales during many ages. In many places this bank was covered with scrub and brushwood on the landward side.
A little stream meandered down to the sea on the north side of the cottage, ending in a pool full of tall reeds, amongst which one could get about in a punt. The seashore itself is very shelving at that place, and there is a bar about a cable’s length out, over which the sea breaks with a tremendous roar during westerly storms. Two hundred yards from the cottage, a large hut had been built for the men-servants and for the kitchen; near by it there was a rough coach-house and a stable with room for a dozen horses. The carriage usually went back to Rome on the day after every one had arrived, and was sent for when wanted; but there were a number of rough Campagna horses in the stable, such as are ridden by the cattle herders about Rome, tough little beasts of fairly good temper and up to a much heavier weight than might be guessed by a stranger in the country. In the morning the men of the party usually went shooting, if the wind was fair, for where quail are concerned much depends on that. Dinner was in the middle of the day, and every one was supposed to go to sleep after it. In the late afternoon the horses were saddled, and the whole party went for a gallop on the sands, or up to classic Ardea, or across the half-cultivated country, coming back to supper when it was dark. A particularly fat and quiet pony was kept for Marcello’s mother, who was no great rider, but the Contessa and Aurora rode anything that was brought them, as the men did. To tell the truth, the Campagna horse is rarely vicious, and, even when only half broken, can be ridden by a lady if she be an average horsewoman.
Everything happened as usual. The party reached the cottage in time for a late luncheon, rested afterwards, and then rode out. But the Signora Corbario would not go.
“Your pony looks fatter and quieter than ever,” said Maddalena dell’ Armi with a smile. “If you do not ride him, he will turn into a fixture.”
“He is already a very solid piece of furniture,” observed Folco, looking at the sleek animal.
“He is very like the square piano I practise on,” said Aurora. “He has such a flat back and such straight thick legs.”
“More like an organ,” put in Marcello, gravely. “He has a curious, half-musical wheeze when he tries to move, like the organ in the church at San Domenico, when the bellows begin to work.”
“It is a shame to make fun of my horse,” answered the Signora, smiling. “But really I am not afraid of him. I have a little headache from the drive, that is all.”
“Take some phenacetine,” said Corbario with concern. “Let me make you quite comfortable before we start.”
He arranged a long straw chair for her in a sheltered corner of the verandah, with cushions and a rug and a small table beside it, on which Marcello placed a couple of new books that had been brought down. Then Folco went in and got a little glass bottle of tablets from his wife’s travelling-bag and gave her one. She was subject to headaches and always had the medicine with her. It was the only remedy she ever carried or needed, and she had such confidence in it that she felt better almost as soon as she had swallowed the tablet her husband gave her.
“Let me stay and read to you,” he said. “Perhaps you would go to sleep.”
“You are not vain of your reading, my dear,” she answered with a smile. “No, please go with the others.”
Then the Contessa offered to stay, and the good Signora had to use a good deal of persuasion to make them all understand that she would much rather be left alone. They mounted and rode away through the trees towards the beach, whence the sound of the small waves, breaking gently under the afternoon breeze, came echoing softly up to the cottage.
The two young people rode in front, in silence; Corbario and the Contessa followed at a little distance.
“How good you are to my wife!” Folco exclaimed presently, as they emerged upon the sand. “You are like a sister to her!”
Maddalena glanced at him through her veil. She had small and classic features, rather hard and proud, and her eyes were of a dark violet colour, which is very unusual, especially in Italy. But she came from the north. Corbario could not see her expression, and she knew it.
“You are good to her, too,” she said presently, being anxious to be just. “You are very thoughtful and kind.”
Corbario thought it wiser to say nothing, and merely bent his head a little in acknowledgment of what he instinctively felt to be an admission on the part of a secret adversary. Maddalena had never said so much before.
“If you were not, I should never forgive you,” she added, thinking aloud.
“I don’t think you have quite forgiven me as it is,” Folco answered more lightly.
“For what?”
“For marrying your best friend.”
The little speech was well spoken, so utterly without complaint, or rancour, or suggestion of earnestness, that the Contessa could only smile.
“And yet you admit that I am not a bad husband,” continued Folco. “Should you accept me, or, say, my exact counterpart, for Aurora, in a year or two?”
“I doubt whether you have any exact counterpart,” Maddalena answered, checking the sharp denial that rose to her lips.
“Myself, then, just for the sake of argument?”
“What an absurd question! Do you mind tightening the girth for me a little? My saddle is slipping.”
She drew rein, and he was obliged to submit to the check. As he dismounted he glanced at Aurora’s graceful figure, a hundred yards ahead, and for one instant he drew his eyelids together with a very strange expression. He knew that the Contessa could not see his face.
Marcello and Aurora had been companions since they were children, and just now they were talking familiarly of the place, which they had not seen since the previous year. All sorts of details struck them. Here, there was more sand than usual; there, a large piece of timber had been washed ashore in the winter gales; at another place there was a new sand-drift that had quite buried the scrub on the top of the bank; the keeper of the San Lorenzo tower had painted his shutters brown, though they had always been green; here was the spot where Aurora had tumbled off her pony when she was only twelve years old — so long ago! And here — they looked at each other and then quickly at the sea, for it was here that Marcello, in a fit of boyish admiration, had once suddenly kissed her cheek, telling her that she was perfectly beautiful. Even now, he blushed when he thought of it, and yet he longed to do it again, and wondered inwardly what would happen if he did.
As for Aurora, though she looked at the sea for a moment, she seemed quite self-possessed. It is a strange thing that if a boy and a girl are brought up in just the same way, by women, and without many companions, the boy should generally be by far the more shy of the two when childhood is just past.
“You are very fond of your stepfather, are you not?” asked Aurora, so suddenly that Marcello started a little and hesitated slightly before he answered.
“Yes,” he said, almost directly, “of course I am! Don’t you like him, too?”
“I used to,” answered Aurora in a low voice, “but now his eyes frighten me — sometimes. For instance, though he is a good way behind, I am sure he is looking at me now, just in that way.”
Marcello turned his head instinctively, and saw that Folco had just dismounted to tighten the girth of the Contessa’s saddle. It was exactly while Aurora was speaking that he had drawn his eyelids together with such a strange expression — a mere coincidence, no doubt, but one that would have startled the girl if she could have suddenly seen his face.
They rode on without waiting for the others, at an even canter over the sand.
“I never saw anything in Folco’s eyes that could frighten anybody,” Marcello said presently.
“No,” answered Aurora. “Very likely not.”
Marcello had always called Corbario by his first name, and as he grew up it seemed more and more natural to do so. Folco was so young, and he looked even younger than he was.
“It must be your imagination,” Marcello said.
“Women,” said Aurora, as if she were as near thirty as any young woman wou
ld acknowledge herself, “women have no imagination. That is why we have so much sense,” she added thoughtfully.
Marcello was so completely puzzled by this extraordinary statement that he could find nothing to say for a few moments. Then he felt that she had attacked his idol, and that Folco must be defended.
“If you could find a single thing, however small, to bring against him, it would not be so silly to say that his eyes frighten you.”
“There!” laughed Aurora. “You might as well say that because at this moment there is only that one little cloud near the sun, there is no cloud at all!”
“How ridiculous!” Marcello expressed his contempt of such girlish reasoning by putting his rough little horse to a gallop.
“Men always say that,” retorted Aurora, with exasperating calm. “I’ll race you to the tower for the first choice of oranges at dessert. They are not very good this year, you know, and you like them.”
“Don’t be silly!” Marcello immediately reined his horse back to a walk, and looked very dignified.
“It is impossible to please you,” observed Aurora, slackening her pace at once.
“It is impossible, if you abuse Folco.”
“I am sure I did not mean to abuse him,” Aurora answered meekly. “I never abuse anybody.”
“Women never do, I suppose,” retorted Marcello, with a little snort of dissatisfaction.
They were little more than children yet, and for pretty nearly five minutes neither spoke a word, as their horses walked side by side.
“The keeper of the tower has more chickens this year,” observed Aurora. “I can see them running about.”
This remark was evidently intended as an overture of reconciliation. It acted like magic upon Marcello, who hated quarrelling, and was moreover much more in love with the girl than he knew. Instinctively he put out his left hand to take her right. They always made peace by taking hands.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1075