A WEDDING JOURNEY
AT noon they kneeled before the Cardinal of Milan, in the great white
cathedral, speaking the words that welded their bonds. It was an hour
of gray skies, and the many-hued sunshine that often had sifted through
the great stained glass windows to felicitate a bride did not fall upon
Hera. The gay world of Lombardy was there, filling the transept with
its silks and jewels, and in the backward parts of the nave and aisles
common folk looked on at the famous wedding.
There was to be a breakfast in Villa Barbiondi, and when the ceremony
at the altar was over some of the princes and dukes and marquises, with
their dames, followed Tarsis and his bride to the main door. In the
journals of that evening were the names of the ladies and gentlemen who
composed the brilliant procession, with details, more or less accurate,
as to the gowns.
Other particulars of the event, within the cathedral and without, were
set down minutely by press men and press women. They told of the
concourse of people in the square--hundreds of them idle working folk;
how they crowded the steps before the church, and how the Civil Guards
kept open a lane to the carriages of the bridal party; but no mention
was made of the sullen faces bordering that lane.
Nor was there any account of the doings of La Ferita, the woman of the
scarred face, who shook her fist at Tarsis. Before he came from the
church she had annoyed the Civil Guards by crying out: “Joy to the
bridegroom! Death to the children in his factories!” The guards gave
her a final warning, which she understood; and when Tarsis passed by
her tongue was stilled, but the long scar glowed and her eyes looked
savage hatred. Tarsis saw the woman shaking her fist at him, and so did
Hera. In after days he was aware of that face, with its deep red mark
running across one eyelid from forehead to cheekbone. Another detail
overlooked or purposely omitted by the conservative press was the low
muttering against the bridegroom that sounded here and there in the
crowd.
The nuptial cortege started for the railway station. In Corso Vittorio
Emanuele it passed a café where a youthful artist, in satirical mood,
was amusing some comrades with his pencil. He threw off a cartoon of
the wedding. It depicted the bridegroom receiving a blow on the nose
from the brawny fist of a workman; and in the place of blood there
flowed--gold pieces! The editor of a revolutionary journal picked it
up, and while the merry breakfast at the villa was in progress the
thing circulated, filling many of the Milanese with delight and moving
others to indignation.
Tarsis and his bride set off for Paris by the night express. The
station master at Milan greeted them as they alighted from the train
that bore them from the Brianza, and with many a bow and smile
conducted them to the private car in which they were to travel as only
the King and the Queen travel in Italy. The ceremonious tribute of the
conductor and the guards as they passed along the platform tickled
the vanity of Tarsis in no small degree. To the keen eye his manner
betrayed the pride he felt in this public display of his husbandship to
the beautiful daughter of the aristocracy who walked by his side.
That was Hera’s thought when they were seated in their moving
drawing-room. Oddly enough she found herself studying his attire. She
recalled that hitherto it had never given her any distinct impression;
he had always appeared dressed in the height of fashion, with a certain
mercantile brilliancy best described, perhaps, as stylish. Now it
seemed that he looked a trifle too much like a bridegroom. In this
moment she awoke sharply to the truth that he was, irreparably, for
better or for worse, her husband. Again she heard the solemn voice of
the cardinal proclaiming, “This bond may not be severed so long as
you do live.” Before, the fact had not assumed a phase of such vivid
actuality; it all had been so utterly opposed to the current of her
thoughts and the desire of her heart. Now the trial she had accepted
in a sentiment of duty came home to her in its practical aspect. And
in the spirit of a gentlewoman she resolved to meet the situation with
good grace. As well look the fact in the eye and make the best of it.
Then and there she decided that under the chafing of the yoke she would
not fret and lose her peace.
It turned out that the wedding journey began with a pleasant surprise
for Tarsis. He found his wife a most cheerful companion. She talked
with him lightly and let her laughter ripple. Of course, she overplayed
the part in her first essay. But Tarsis, in his exultation, was
completely _hors de critique_. This unexpected melting of his iceberg
produced cups of vanity which went to his head and intoxicated him to
the verge of blindness. All he could see was his own supposed success
in making himself agreeable to his wife. After dinner, when the
attendant had set out the Marsala and cigars, she bade him smoke, and
while he did so she read to him from the Milanese _Firefly_. Together
they laughed over the droll jests and anecdotes told so quaintly in the
Lombardian patter. He told her about his career in the money-making
world; how success there was once his only aspiration, but that now
he was aware of a waning zest in the game. He paused to look into her
eyes, while a certain softness, as of meek appeal, showed in his own.
Then he said, rising and standing near her chair:
“Life holds only one prize for me to-day. It is your tender regard.”
A deep tide of colour dyed Hera’s cheeks, and, without making other
reply, she turned her head and gazed upon the sparkling electric lamps
of a village that was sailing by. A moment more, and she rose, but only
to bid him good-night and withdraw to the compartment prepared for her.
Tarsis followed her with his eyes, an amused smile on his lips, and
when she had disappeared he took a cigar from the box, lighted it, and
threw himself into a long-cushioned chair. For an hour he stayed there,
meditative, cheerful, while the train wound and climbed and burrowed
its way across the Alps.
In the late afternoon they rolled into a gloomy terminal station of
the French capital. It had been a day of rain clouds with short-lived
intervals of clear sky; and while on their way to an obscure but
aristocratic hotel on the left bank of the Seine they saw Paris in one
of her happiest moments--a period of sunshine between showers. There
was an air of gladness about the passing throngs--a momentary lift of
spirits imparted by the smiling heavens; the wet pavements glistened,
as did the oil-cloths of cabmen and gendarmes, and the moving life
everywhere gave forth a lightened resonance. But before they reached
the hotel umbrellas were up, and Paris was cross again.
So the weather served them nearly every hour of their week’s stay.
Tarsis made no effort to reapproach the theme of “tender regard,” and
Hera seemed to enter heartily into the enjoyment of the amusements
he provided. The opera had no auditor more pleased than she, and
when they drove in the Bois--between showers--she saw so many things
in the spring’s unfolding, and talked about them so brightly, that
Tarsis found himself interested for once in the wonders of nature’s
workshop. She had put on the armour of contentment, believing he would
perceive that she wore it not only in kindness but from a sense of duty
consequent upon the giving of her hand. She believed that he would
comprehend as well that it was meant no less for self-defence than for
self-effacement. Upon his keenness of intellect she had counted, and
not in vain. He read her declaration as clearly as if she had written
it in the plainest of Tuscan words: The lot he had chosen was the one
by which he must abide; her armour of contentment was so frail that it
might be broken by even an essay on his part at disturbing the status
quo to which he had agreed. All this he appreciated and made believe to
accept as her immutable law.
The wedding journey took its course over the English Channel. In London
Hera found many letters from Italy. From Aunt Beatrice there were four
precisely written pages, over which the sage spinster had spread her
dictum, with a fine tone of authority, on the amenities of wifehood.
The letter from Don Riccardo breathed tenderness and sympathy, but
proved a fresh reminder of the frail nature that was her father’s. He
charged her that the Barbiondi were not made for slavery. Never must
she sink under the burden of her marriage. If ever it became too heavy
to bear with honour she must cast it off, come what might. Well he knew
the sacrifice she was making. Was the father’s heart to be deceived
because the daughter was too brave to come to him with her trouble? Ah,
no!
“Beloved Hera,” he went on, “your absence tears my heart. Oh, fate!
Why could it not have spared us enough to live in our humble peace?
But no--ah, well, why weep over the irreparable? _A chi tocca, tocca._
Is it not so? With my warmest blessing and prayers most ardent for
your happiness, I am your affectionate
“BABBO.”
Hera was able to utter a heartfelt thanksgiving that her father had
not urged her to the marriage. She was glad he had done nothing in
that affair to lessen the respect for him which she mingled with her
love. There was a letter from a comrade of the Brianza--the little
Marchioness di Tramonta; she wrote from the eminence of almost a year
of married life. Letters from girl friends--dainty missives in cream
and lilac--conveyed glowing wishes for a bright future.
Typewritten letters in printed envelopes had haunted Tarsis from the
hour of his arrival in Paris. And now they pursued him to London.
Thanks to the eclipse of the honeymoon, he found opportunity to read
and answer many of them, as well as to spend a part of the day in
Lombard street on “urgent matters of business,” as he explained to his
bride.
Hera sent her father a most cheerful reply. “To-day,” she said, in
closing, “I have had an interesting experience in dreary London. I
promised you to pay a visit to the Duchess of Claychester. I did so
this afternoon, and I am glad indeed. You did not tell me, _babbo_,
that the Duchess is one of those English ladies of whom we read in
Italy because of their work among the poor. We had luncheon in her
house in Cavendish Square, then went to a place called a ‘settlement,’
of which she is chief patroness. It is a large modern building in the
midst of the most squalid section of Marylebone--a quarter, I am told,
that for human wretchedness is worse than the East End one hears so
much about in the novels. My heart turned sick at the sights. Is it
possible that we have anything so bad in Milan? Signor Forza told me of
the poor of our Porta Ticinese quarter and I have heard about them from
others. I have never been there, yet I cannot believe it equals the
miserable life of this London slum. Now, what I saw gave me an idea.
And what do you think it is? That I may be useful in the world! Yes,
and in the way that the Duchess of Claychester is; but among our own
people in Milan. I learned all that I could about the work.
“They have women called ‘visitors’ who go to the homes of the poor
people, and with one of these I went for an hour or more. It was an
experience I shall never forget. She told me that she had to employ
rare tact sometimes, because there were men and women in the slums who
objected to being ‘elevated’ or ‘ameliorated.’ It was so that my guide
expressed it. We had a striking proof of the fact in one place. The
family consisted of a very small woman, a very large man, and two wee
girls. That they were in need anyone could see. As soon as we entered
the man acted like a hunted animal at bay. The visitor was a woman of
severe manner, and I must say that I did not detect in the way she
went about this case any of that ‘rare tact’ which she said was so
necessary. ‘Charity!’ the man roared back at her (I give it in his own
language), ‘who asks yer bloody charity? What we wants is justice, we
do. An’ justice we’ll ’ave some day, yer bet yer boots!’ He shook his
fist in the visitor’s face, and his wife tugged at his coat, saying:
‘Be-ive yerself, ’Enry; be-ive yerself!’
“The visitor thought it time to go, and I agreed with her. These
English! These English!
“It has rained every day since we left Italy. In France we caught a
peep of the sun now and then; here, never. If ever again I stand under
our skies I shall rejoice. Before I thought of being useful it seemed
that those skies could never be bright, and I dreaded going back. But
now, oh, how eager I am to be there! Ever your affectionate daughter,
who counts the hours until she shall see you,
“HERA.”