Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Don’t talk about my mother in that way,” he said angrily.

  “I’m not talking of her at all. She is a saint, and I love her very much. But that is no reason why you should always be with her, as if you were a girl! I don’t suppose you mean to begin life as a saint yourself, do you? You are rather young for that, you know.”

  “No,” Marcello answered, feeling that he was not saying just the right thing, but not knowing what to say. “And I am sure my mother does not expect it of me, either,” he added. “But that is no reason why you should be so disagreeable.”

  He felt that he had been weak, and that he ought to say something sharp. He knew very well that his mother believed it quite possible for a boy to develop into saintship without passing through the intermediate state of sinning manhood; and though his nature told him that he was not of the temper that attains sanctity all at once, he felt that he owed to his mother’s hopes for him a sort of loyalty in which Aurora had made him fail. The reasonings of innocent sentiment are more tortuous than the wiles of the devil himself, and have amazing power to torment the unfledged conscience of a boy brought up like Marcello.

  Aurora’s way of thinking was much more direct.

  “If you think I am disagreeable, you can go away,” she said, with a scornful laugh.

  “Thank you. You are very kind.” He tried to speak sarcastically, but it was a decided failure.

  To his surprise, Aurora turned and looked at him very quietly.

  “I wonder whether I shall like you, when you are a man,” she said in a tone of profound reflection. “I am rather ashamed of liking you now, because you are such a baby.”

  He flushed again, very angry this time, and he moved away to leave her, without another word.

  She turned her face to the storm and took no notice of him. She thought that he would come back, but there was just the least doubt about it, which introduced an element of chance and was perfectly delightful while it lasted. Was there ever a woman, since the world began, who did not know that sensation, either by experience or by wishing she might try it? What pleasure would there be in angling if the fish did not try to get off the hook, but stupidly swallowed it, fly and all? It might as well crawl out of the stream at once and lay itself meekly down in the basket.

  And Marcello came back, before he had taken four steps.

  “Is that what you meant when you said that you might never come here again?” he asked, and there was something rough in his tone that pleased her.

  “No,” she answered, as if nothing had happened. “Mamma talked to me a long time last night.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Do you want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no reason why I should not tell you. She says that we must not come here after I go into society, because people will think that she is trying to marry me to you.”

  She looked at him boldly for a moment, and then turned her eyes to the sea.

  “Why should she care what people think?” he asked.

  “Because it would prevent me from marrying any one else,” answered Aurora, with the awful cynicism of youth. “If every one thought I was engaged to you, or going to be, no other man could ask for me. It’s simple enough, I’m sure!”

  “And you wish other men to ask you to marry them, I suppose?”

  Marcello was a little pale, but he tried to throw all the contempt he could command into his tone. Aurora smiled sweetly.

  “Naturally,” she said. “I’m only a woman.”

  “Which means that I’m a fool to care for you!”

  “You are, if you think I’m not worth caring for.” The girl laughed.

  This was so very hard to understand that Marcello knit his smooth young brow and looked very angry, but could find nothing to say on the spur of the moment. All women are born with the power to put a man into such a position that he must either contradict himself, hold his tongue, or fly into a senseless rage. They do this so easily, that even after the experience of a life-time we never suspect the trap until they pull the string and we are caught. Then, if we contradict ourselves, woman utters an inhuman cry of triumph and jeers at our unstable purpose; if we lose our tempers instead, she bursts into tears and calls us brutes; and finally, if we say nothing, she declares, with a show of reason, that we have nothing to say.

  “HE FLUSHED AGAIN, VERY ANGRY THIS TIME, AND HE MOVED AWAY TO LEAVE HER, WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD.”

  Marcello lost his temper.

  “You are quite right,” he said angrily. “You are not worth caring for. You are a mere child, and you are a miserable little flirt already, and you will be a detestable woman when you grow up! You will lead men on, and play with them, and then laugh at them. But you shall not laugh at me again. You shall not have that satisfaction! You shall wish me back, but I will not come, not if you break your silly little heart!”

  With this terrific threat the boy strode away, leaving her to watch the storm alone in the lee of the sandbank. Aurora knew that he really meant to go this time, and at first she was rather glad of it, since he was in such a very bad temper. She felt that he had insulted her, and if he had stayed any longer she would doubtless have called him a brute, that being the woman’s retort under the circumstances. She had not the slightest doubt of being quite reconciled with him before luncheon, of course, but in her heart she wished that she had not made him angry. It had been very pleasant to watch the storm together, and when they had come to the place, she had felt a strong presentiment that he would kiss her, and that the contrast between the kiss and the howling gale would be very delightful.

  The presentiment had certainly not come true, and now that Marcello was gone it was not very amusing to feel the spray and the sand on her face, or to watch the tumbling breakers and listen to the wind. Besides, she had been there some time, and she had not even had her little breakfast of coffee and rolls before coming down to the shore. She suddenly felt hungry and cold and absurdly inclined to cry, and she became aware that the sand had got into her russet shoes, and that it would be very uncomfortable to sit down in such a place to take them off and shake it out; and that, altogether, misfortunes never come singly.

  After standing still three or four minutes longer, she turned away with a discontented look in her face, all rosy with the wind and spray. She started as she saw Corbario standing before her, for she had not heard his footsteps in the gale. He wore his shooting-coat and heavy leathern gaiters, but he had no gun. She thought he looked pale, and that there was a shade of anxiety in his usually expressionless face.

  “We wondered where you were,” he said. “There is coffee in the verandah, and your mother is out already.”

  “I came down to look at the storm,” Aurora answered. “I forgot all about breakfast.”

  They made a few steps in the direction of the cottage. Aurora felt that Corbario was looking sideways at her as they walked.

  “Have you seen Marcello?” he asked presently.

  “Did you not meet him?” Aurora was surprised. “It is not five minutes since he left me.”

  “No. I did not meet him.”

  “That is strange.”

  They went on in silence for a few moments.

  “I cannot understand why you did not meet Marcello,” Aurora said suddenly, as if she had thought it over. “Did you come this way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps he got back before you started. He walks very fast.”

  “Perhaps,” Corbario said, “but I did not see him. I came to look for you both.”

  “Expecting to find us together, of course!” Aurora threw up her head a little disdainfully, for Marcello had offended her.

  “He is generally somewhere near you, poor boy,” answered Corbario in a tone of pity.

  “Why do you say ‘poor boy’ in that tone? Do you think he is so much to be pitied?”

  “A little, certainly.” Corbario smiled.

  “I don’t see why.”


  “Women never do, when a man is in love!”

  “Women” — the flattery was subtle and Aurora’s face cleared. Corbario was a man of the world, without doubt, and he had called her a woman, in a most natural way, as if she had been at least twenty years old. It did not occur to her to ask herself whether Folco had any object in wishing to please her just then, but she knew well enough that he did wish to do so. Even a girl’s instinct is unerring in that; and Corbario further pleased her by not pursuing the subject, for what he had said seemed all the more spontaneous because it led to nothing.

  “If Marcello is not in the cottage,” he observed, as they came near, “he must have gone off for a walk after he left you. Did you not see which way he turned?”

  “How could I from the place where I stood?” asked Aurora in reply. “As soon as he had turned behind the bank it was impossible to say which way he had gone.”

  “Of course,” assented Folco. “I understand that.”

  Marcello had not come home, and Aurora was sorry that she had teased him into a temper and had then allowed him to go away. It was not good for him, delicate as he was, to go for a long walk in such weather without any breakfast, and she felt distinctly contrite as she ate her roll in silence and drank her coffee, on the sheltered side of the cottage, under the verandah. The Signora Corbario had not appeared yet, but the Contessa was already out. As a rule the Signora preferred to have her coffee in her room, as if she were in town. For some time no one spoke.

  “Had we not better send Ercole to find Marcello?” the Contessa asked at last.

  “I had to send Ercole to Porto d’Anzio this morning,” Corbario answered. “I took the opportunity, because I knew there would be no quail with this wind.”

  “Marcello will come in when he is hungry,” said Aurora, rather sharply, because she really felt sorry.

  But Marcello did not come in.

  Soon after eight o’clock his mother appeared on the verandah. Folco dropped his newspaper and hastened to make her comfortable in her favourite chair. Though she was not strong, she was not an invalid, but she was one of those women whom it seems natural to help, to whom men bring cushions, and with whom other women are always ready to sympathise. If one of Fra Angelico’s saints should walk into a modern drawing-room all the men would fall over each other in the scramble to make her comfortable, and all the women would offer her tea and ask her if she felt the draught.

  The Signora looked about, expecting to see her son.

  “Marcello has not come in,” said Folco, understanding. “He seems to have gone for a long walk.”

  “I hope he has put on his thick boots,” answered the Signora, in a thoughtful tone. “It is very wet.”

  She asked why Folco was not with him shooting, and was told that there were no birds in such weather. She had never understood the winds, nor the points of the compass, nor why one should see the new moon in the west instead of in the east. Very few women do, but those who live much with men generally end by picking up a few useful expressions, a little phrase-book of jargon terms with which men are quite satisfied. They find out that a fox has no tail, a wild boar no teeth, a boat no prow, and a yacht no staircase; and this knowledge is better than none.

  The Signora accepted the fact that there were no birds that morning, and began to talk to Maddalena. Aurora got a book and pretended to read, but she was really listening for Marcello’s footsteps, and wondering whether he would smile at her, or would still be cross when he came in. Corbario finished his paper and went off to look at the weather from the other side of the house, and the two women talked in broken sentences as old friends do, with long intervals of silence.

  The wind had moderated a good deal, but as the sun rose higher the glare in the sky grew more yellow, the air was much warmer, and the trees and shrubs and long grass began to steam as if they had been half boiled. All manner of tiny flies and gnats chased each other in the lurid light.

  “It feels as if there were going to be an earthquake,” said Maddalena, throwing back the lace from her grey hair as if even its light weight oppressed her.

  “Yes.”

  The women sat in silence, uneasy, their lips a little parted. Not that an earthquake would have disturbed them much, for slight ones are common enough in Italy, and could do no harm at all to a wooden cottage; it was a mere physical breathlessness that they felt, as the gale suddenly dropped and the heavy air became quite still on the sheltered side of the cottage.

  Aurora threw aside her book impatiently and rose from her chair.

  “I am going to look for Marcello,” she said, and she went off without turning her head.

  On the other side of the cottage, as she went round, she found Folco sitting on the steps of the verandah, his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his folded hands, apparently in deep thought. He had a cigar between his teeth, but it had gone out.

  “I am going to look for Marcello,” said Aurora, as she passed close beside him.

  He said nothing, and hardly moved his head. Aurora turned and looked at him as she stepped upon the path.

  “What is the matter?” she asked, as she saw his face. “Is anything wrong?”

  Corbario looked up quickly, as if he had been in a reverie.

  “Anything the matter? No. Where did you say you were going?”

  “To find Marcello. He has not come in yet.”

  “He has gone for a walk, I suppose. He often walks alone on off days. He will be back before luncheon, and you are not going to town till the afternoon.”

  “Will you come with me?” Aurora asked, for she was in a good humour with Folco.

  He rose at once.

  “I’ll go with you for a stroll,” he said, “but I don’t think it is of any use to look for Marcello near the house.”

  “It can do no harm.”

  “And it will do us good to walk a bit.”

  They went down the path and through the trees towards the break in the bank.

  “The sand was very wet this morning, even inside the bank,” Aurora said. “I daresay we shall find his footsteps and be able to guess which way he went.”

  “Very likely,” Folco answered.

  He pushed back his tweed cap a little and passed his handkerchief across his smooth brow. Aurora noticed the action, because he did not usually get warm so easily.

  “Are you hot?” she asked carelessly.

  “A little,” he answered. “The air is so heavy this morning.”

  “Perhaps you are not quite well,” said Aurora. “You are a little pale.”

  Apparently something in her youthfully patronising tone came as near irritating him as anything ever could.

  “What does it matter, whether I am hot or not?” he asked, almost impatiently, and again he passed his handkerchief over his forehead.

  “I did not mean to annoy you,” Aurora answered with uncommon meekness.

  They came near the break in the bank, and she looked at the sand on each side of her. She thought it seemed smoother than usual, and that there were not so many little depressions in it, where there had been footsteps on previous days, half obliterated by wind and rain.

  “I cannot see where you and I passed an hour ago,” she said, in some surprise.

  “The wind draws through the gap with tremendous strength,” Folco explained. “Just before the gale moderated there was a heavy squall with rain.”

  “Was there? I did not notice that — but I was on the lee side of the house. The wind must have smoothed the sand, just like a flat-iron!”

  “Yes.” Corbario answered indifferently and gazed out to sea.

  Aurora left his side and looked about, going to a little distance from the gap, first on one side and then on the other.

  “It is as if the wind had done it on purpose!” she cried impatiently. “It is as smooth as if it had all been swept with a gardener’s broom.”

  Corbario turned, lighted his extinguished cigar, and watched her, as she moved about, stoop
ing now and then to examine the sand.

  “I don’t believe it is of any use to look here,” he said. “Besides, he will be back in time for luncheon.”

  “I suppose so,” answered Aurora. “Why do you look at me in that way?” she asked, standing upright and meeting his eyes suddenly.

  He laughed softly and took his cigar from his mouth.

  “I was watching you. You are very graceful when you move.”

  She did not like his expression.

  “I wish you would think less about me and more about finding Marcello,” she said rather sharply.

  “You talk as if he were lost. I tell you he will surely come back before long.”

  “I hope so.”

  But Marcello did not come back, and after Aurora had returned to the cottage and was seated in her chair again, with her book, she grew restless, and went over in her memory what had passed in the morning. It was not possible that Marcello should really mean to carry out his threat, to go away without a word, to leave her, to leave his mother; and yet, he was gone. A settled conviction came over her that he was really gone, just as he was, most probably back to Rome. She had teased him, and he had been very angry, absurdly angry; and yet she was perhaps responsible, in a way, for his disappearance. Presently his mother would grow anxious and would ask questions, and then it would all come out. It would be better to be brave and to say at once that he had been angry with her; she could confess the truth to her mother, to the Signora, if necessary, or even to both together, for they were women and would understand. But she could not tell the story before Corbario. That would be out of the question; and yet, anything would be better than to let them all think that something dreadful had happened to Marcello. He had gone to Rome, of course; or perhaps only to Porto d’Anzio, in which case he would meet Ercole coming back.

  The hours wore on to midday, and Signora Corbario’s uneasiness grew into real anxiety. The Contessa did her best to soothe her, but was anxious herself, and still Aurora said nothing. Folco was grave, but assured every one that the boy would soon return, though the Signora would not believe it.