Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Then she felt that her heart was beating again, for she was sure that it had quite stopped. But at the same instant her hand unconsciously relaxed, and her open parasol, which was already half over the step of the phaeton, flew out, rolled a little way, and lay in the middle of the road, with the handle upwards.

  She sat up quickly and called to Telemaco to stop. But the old man was a little deaf, and she had to call twice before he checked the quickly-trotting pair and brought them to a stand.

  ‘My parasol!’ she cried, as the coachman looked over his shoulder. ‘Give me the reins and get it,’ she added.

  She heard the hoofs of a horse cantering up behind her, and she looked round. Castiglione must have turned in the saddle to look after her, and must have seen the parasol fall. It lay with the handle upward, and parasol handles chanced to be long that year. It was easy for a good rider to bend low and pick the thing up almost without slackening his pace, and in another moment he was beside the carriage giving it back to Maria.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said faintly. ‘I did not know you were in Rome.’

  A quick word rose to his lips, but he checked it. Then he bent down to her from the saddle, on pretence of brushing an imaginary fly from his horse’s shoulder.

  ‘I thought you would rather not know it from me,’ he said quietly, but so low that the deaf coachman could not hear. ‘Good morning, Contessa,’ he added more loudly, as he straightened himself in the saddle and saluted again.

  He was gone, trotting back to join his companion; but she would not look after him when she had told Telemaco to drive on. And all the way home a great wave of joy was surging up round her, to her very feet, and she was trying to climb higher lest it should rise and overwhelm her; and she was clinging to something dark, and cold, and hard as a black marble pillar, that was Montalto, and duty, and death, all in one.

  That afternoon a note came for her, brought to the door by a trooper and left with the remark that there was no answer.

  It contained the telegram Castiglione had received in Milan, and a sheet of note-paper on which a few words were written in pencil.

  ‘This explains itself,’ he wrote. ‘It is the inevitable. I shall not try to see you.’ She knew that she ought to be proud of his good faith, but it was not easy.

  CHAPTER XI

  MORE THAN A month had passed and it was near the end of May; yet Maria had not again exchanged a word with Castiglione. She had seen him twice in the street, from a distance, but she was not sure that he had seen her the second time. If he saw her, he certainly wished her to think that he did not. She never went to the Villa Borghese, nor drove towards Tor di Quinto nor along the beautiful Monte Parioli avenue, lest she should meet him in one of those places where officers ride at all hours of the day. On his side, he avoided the streets through which she was likely to pass. It was easy enough to do that, and as she was in mourning he was sure not to find her where people met in the houses of mutual acquaintances.

  For he had no intention of shutting himself up, being much too sensible not to foresee that if he did so people would say he spent his time with her. He showed himself in many places, on the contrary, frequented Teresa Crescenzi’s drawing-room at tea-time, dined assiduously with his cousins the Boccapaduli, at whose house the old-fashioned Romans congregated, and also with the Campodonico, and he was often at the Parenzos’ pretty house in the Via Ludovisi, which was a favourite gathering-place of the political party then in power, and of that portion of the diplomatic corps which was accredited to the Quirinal and not to the Vatican. The Duca di Casalmaggiore had become a friend of Parenzo’s, and Castiglione took a good deal of pains to be seen as often as possible in society by his colonel, who was of an inquisitive turn of mind. In order to make his existence still more patent in the eyes of his comrades, he lodged with one of them, a man of his own age who was also not very well off, and who could hardly help knowing where Baldassare went, what he did, and whether he received many notes addressed in feminine handwriting or not. The consequence of all this, and of his assiduity in matters of duty, was that Teresa Crescenzi’s latest story got little credit, and his brother officers said that he was ambitious and was going in for the career in earnest. The colonel, who was a widower with a son in the navy and a daughter married in Naples, and whom Teresa had once vainly tried to capture for herself, disliked her and so effectually ridiculed her invention that the rest of Castiglione’s comrades fell into the way of laughing at her, too; and they said that after having failed to marry the colonel she had tried to catch Baldassare, and now meant to revenge herself because he would not have her. His chum, too, told them that he certainly had no secret love affair, and that when he was not on duty or at the officers’ club, or where every one could see him, he was in his lodgings reading German books on military tactics. Clearly he was going in for the career.

  He did not act or look like a man in love either; not in the least. He had not been talkative before he left the regiment, but since he had returned he took more pains than formerly to join in the conversation. Another point in his favour was that he never had any vague engagement which hindered him from joining in anything that was unexpectedly proposed. Whatever he had to do was open and definite; when it was not duty, it was a real promise to dine with some one whom he named, and he took care to have it known that he went; or else he had agreed to ride somewhere with an acquaintance, and if any one took the trouble to go to that place, there he was, sure enough, with the man he had named. In what was left of society so late in the season, if he once talked especially to any one woman he gave himself as much pains to amuse and interest another on the morrow. He was such a model of a sensible man and such a good officer that the colonel, who was rich enough to have afforded the luxury of a poor son-in-law, wished he had another daughter that he might marry her to Castiglione; and he said so openly, to the great edification of Roman society.

  As for Maria Montalto she did not speak of him again to Giuliana, but the latter knew she never let him come to the house and that she had made up her mind to see him as rarely as possible. Giuliana was too simple and natural to care whether this excellent state of things was due to her own advice or to Montalto’s approaching return. It was enough that Maria was doing right and giving the gossips nothing to talk about.

  Parenzo and his wife went to England at this time, with the intention of spending three weeks there. The Marchese, it was understood, was entrusted with some special political business, and as a matter of course he took his wife with him; for the first time in her life Maria was glad to part from her old friend.

  There are ordeals which it is easier to face alone than under the eyes of others, even of those we love best; there are tortures which are a little easier to bear when our dearest friends are not watching our faces to see if we shall wince.

  The date of Montalto’s return was approaching, and the state apartment in the palace was almost ready, thanks to Orlando Schmidt’s quiet energy and to a rather lavish expenditure of money. He was a truly wonderful young man, Maria thought, for he seemed to know everything that was useful and possessed the power of making people work without so much as complaining till they were quite exhausted. He never raised his voice, he never spoke roughly to a workman; but he seemed to inspire something like terror and abject submission in all whom he employed, and they spoke in whispers when he was near and worked till they could work no longer.

  Maria went to the apartment twice again, once to select the hangings and stuffs for her own rooms out of a quantity that had been sent for her approval, and once again when the furnishing was almost finished. She was quiet and collected, for nothing was left to remind her of the old boudoir and the rest. At her second visit she was surprised to find that the small room had three doors instead of two as formerly, and she asked the steward if the third one was real, or an imitation fastened against the solid wall for the sake of symmetry.

  ‘It is a real door,’ answered Schmidt. ‘It had been thinly walled up
and plastered over long ago, and I found it accidentally, and took the liberty of opening it again. I hope your Excellency will approve.’

  ‘It looks well,’ Maria said, for it helped to change the aspect of the room; ‘but where does it take one?’

  ‘To the chapel,’ replied the steward. ‘I found a narrow passage leading directly to a small door on the left side of the altar. You can thus reach the chapel by a private way without going through the apartment. The corridor was quite dark, but I have had electric light put in. The key is here, you see.’

  Schmidt moved it and opened the door at the same time with his other hand, and Maria saw a narrow passage, brightly lit up. The walls were white and varnished, and the floor was of plain white tiles.

  ‘It must have been made in the beginning of the eighteenth century,’ Schmidt said. ‘There was a Countess at that time who was a princess of Saxony and was excessively devout. She died mad.’

  ‘You know the family history better than I do,’ observed Maria.

  ‘We have served the Excellent house from father to son more than two hundred years.’

  Schmidt said this as if he were telling her the most ordinary fact in the world.

  ‘Will your Excellency please go to the chapel by the private passage?’ he asked.

  Maria let him lead the way and followed him. She was gratified by the use he had made of his discovery, for she thought that it would sometimes be a relief to go to the chapel alone and unnoticed. But she also wished to assure herself that no one else could use the corridor, and that there was a bolt or a lock on the door at the other end. It was not that she distrusted Schmidt; on the contrary, she thought very well of him, and was sure that he had consulted only her convenience in what he had done. But when she thought of what was before her, she felt very defenceless in the great old house, so different from the comfortable little modern apartment in which she had lived with Leone, where there were no hidden staircases, nor secret passages, nor legends of mad countesses in the eighteenth century, nor any ghosts of Maria’s own life.

  Apparently Schmidt had told her the exact truth about the passage, which was much longer than she had expected, and turned to the right very soon, and was straight beyond that for twenty yards or more. Maria guessed that it here followed the long wall of the great ball-room, which had no entrances opposite the windows. She reached the door of the chapel, and the electric light showed her a strong new bolt with a brass knob, besides the spring latch.

  ‘It is quite private, you see,’ said Schmidt. ‘The door can be fastened from this side.’

  ‘I see. It is very satisfactory. You have thought of everything.’

  He opened the door of the small dim chapel, but she would not go in. It had memories for her which she was afraid to stir. She remembered how she had once gone there alone between midnight and morning with a great horror upon her; and how she had knelt down, setting her candlestick on the pavement beside her; and the dawn had found her there still. She knew also that in another week or ten days she would have to kneel there at mass on a Sunday; and Montalto would be kneeling on one side of her, and Leone with his bright blue eyes would be on the other.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to the steward. ‘I will not go into the chapel now.’

  ‘Nothing has been changed there,’ he answered. ‘It has merely been thoroughly cleaned.’

  Maria remembered the two hideous barocco angels in impossible gilt draperies that supported a dreadful gilt canopy above the tabernacle; and the absurd decorations of the miniature dome; and the detestable assemblage of many-coloured marbles; and all the details that recalled the atrocious taste introduced under the Spanish influence in the south of Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She had seen nothing of all that when she had come there alone, long after midnight, years ago, with only her one flickering candle to light her through the great dark rooms and to show her where the altar was.

  ‘I thought the Count would not like to have electric light in the chapel,’ said Schmidt, as he fastened the door carefully. ‘The key for the lights in the passage is here on the wall, your Excellency, just on a level with the lock as you come in.’

  ‘It is really very well arranged,’ Maria answered, and as the passage was not wide enough for two persons to pass conveniently, she turned and led the way back.

  ‘I have had the walls varnished, because almost any sort of tinting might rub off on your Excellency’s dress,’ said Schmidt. ‘The passage is so extremely narrow, you see.’

  ‘It is very nice,’ Maria answered. ‘It was most sensible of you.’

  Behind her, Orlando Schmidt blushed with pleasure at her praise, and watched her graceful moving figure, shown off against the shining white walls by the close-fitting black she wore. They reached the boudoir, and there also Schmidt closed and locked the door. But this time he took out the key and handed it to Maria.

  ‘As the passage is for your Excellency’s private use, you may prefer to take away the key, since the workmen have nothing more to do there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Maria answered.

  ‘The servants need not know that the door is a real one,’ observed Schmidt.

  It chanced that Maria did not much like the maid she had at that time, but as the woman was clever she meant to keep her. It struck her that there was certainly no reason why she need know that her mistress could go from her own rooms to the chapel without being seen, if she wished to say her prayers there in private. As for the chapel itself, its outer door was formerly kept locked, and Montalto had given her a key to it when they had been married. The reason for keeping it shut was that the altar contained a reliquary in which was preserved a comparatively large relic of the Cross, already very long an heirloom in the family. No doubt Schmidt knew this, as he seemed to know everything else about his hereditary employers — or masters, as he would have called them. When one family of men has served another faithfully, those who serve possess a sort of universal knowledge of such details which no ordinary servant could acquire in half a lifetime.

  Maria left the boudoir, after putting the key into the small new black Morocco bag, which had taken the place of the rather shabby grey velvet one she had used so long. When she came to live in the palace she meant to keep the key in her writing-desk.

  ‘The Count wishes me to be here when he comes,’ she said as they passed through the great ball-room. ‘He writes that you will engage servants and see to everything. Our old butler and coachman have never left me. Do you think I may keep them still? I wish to do nothing, however, which does not agree with your instructions.’

  ‘My master’s orders,’ said Schmidt, ‘are to meet your Excellency’s wishes in every respect. He will not even bring his own man with him, and I have orders to engage a valet for him. If you will tell me what day will be convenient for you to move, I will see that everything is ready.’

  ‘The Count writes that he will arrive on Sunday afternoon,’ Maria answered. ‘I had better be here two days before that. I will come on Friday morning.’

  ‘On Friday?’ repeated the steward with a little surprise.

  ‘Yes. Are you superstitious, Signor Orlando?’

  She really could not call him ‘Signor Schmidt’; it was too absurd; yet he was of Italian nationality.

  ‘No, your Excellency, I am not. But most people are. If the Signora Contessa would be kind enough to call me simply Schmidt,’ he added with a little hesitation, ‘it is an easy name to remember, and does not occur in Ariosto’s poem.’

  She looked at him rather curiously, but she smiled at his last words.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘As you like.’

  ‘It was my mother,’ he explained, blushing shyly. ‘She is very fond of Ariosto, and she insisted on christening me Orlando. On Friday next everything will be ready to receive your Excellency and the young gentleman. Shall I provide for moving the Signora Contessa’s things?’

  ‘I shall be much obliged,’ said Maria, who was glad t
hat she was to be spared all trouble.

  She went home feeling as if she were in a painful dream, from which she must awake before long. In the afternoon, when Agostino was out with Leone and the little house was quiet, she went to the telephone and asked for the number of the Palazzo Boccapaduli. She got it, and was answered by a man-servant. She inquired when Castiglione would be at home, but was told that he was not staying in the house. It was the only address she knew, so she asked where he lived. The servant did not know, but would go and find out, if she would hold the communication.

  A few moments later the voice that spoke to her was Oderisio’s, and he asked with whom he was speaking, and on being told, at once inquired if it was she who wanted Castiglione’s address. Yes, it was she; did he know it? Yes, he did; and he gave it. Had Castiglione a telephone? No, but he might be at the officers’ club; did she wish the number of that? No, she did not care for it. Thank you, and good-bye.

  At first she was a little annoyed that young Boccapaduli should know she wanted Castiglione’s address. But presently, as she went back to the sitting-room, it struck her that it was just as well. Oderisio would understand that she was not seeing Baldassare often, since she did not know his address after he had been in Rome nearly a month.

  She wrote him a short note, which anybody might have read, begging him to come and see her on the following Thursday after half-past two. She addressed it and stamped it, she put on her hat without calling her maid, and she went out to post it in the letter-box at the corner of the railway station.