MARCIA was awakened the next morning by Bianca knocking at the door,
with the information that Gervasio wished to get up, and that, as his
clothes were very ragged, she had taken the liberty the night before of
throwing them away.
For an instant Marcia blinked uncomprehendingly; then, as the events of
the evening flashed through her mind, she sat up in bed, and
solicitously clasping her knees in her hands, considered the problem.
She felt, and not without reason, that Gervasio’s future success at the
villa depended largely on the impression he made at this, his first
formal appearance. She finally dispatched Bianca to try him with one of
Gerald’s suits, and to be very sure that his face was clean. Meanwhile
she hurried through with her own dressing in order to be the first to
inspect his rehabilitation.
As she was putting the last touches to her hair she heard a murmur of
voices on the terrace, and peering out cautiously, beheld her uncle and
Sybert lounging on the parapet engaged with cigarettes. She had not
been dreaming, then; those were Sybert’s steps she had heard the night
before. She puckered her brow over the puzzle and peered out again.
Whatever had happened last night, there was nothing electrical in the
air this morning. The two had apparently shoved all inflammable
subjects behind them and were merely waiting idly until coffee should
be served.
It was a beautifully peaceful spring morning that she looked out upon.
The two men on the terrace appeared to be in mood with the
day—careless, indifferent loungers, nothing more. And last night? She
recalled their low, fierce, angry tones; and the lines in her forehead
deepened. This was a chameleon world, she thought. As she stood
watching them, Gervasio for the moment forgotten, Gerald ran up to the
two with some childish prattle which called forth a quick, amused
laugh. Sybert stretched out a lazy hand and drew the boy toward him.
Carefully balancing his cigarette on the edge of one of the terra-cotta
vases, he rose to his feet and tossed the little fellow in the air four
or five times. Gerald screamed with delight and called for more. Sybert
laughingly declined, as he resumed his cigarette and his seat on the
balustrade.
The little play recalled Marcia to her duty. With a shake of her head
at matters in general, she gave them up, and turned her face toward
Gervasio’s quarters. Bianca was on her knees before the boy, giving the
last touches to his sailor tie, and she turned him slowly around for
inspection. His appearance was even more promising than Marcia had
hoped for. With his dark curls still damp from their unwonted
ablutions, clad in one of Gerald’s baggiest sailor-suits of red linen
with a rampant white collar and tie, except for his bare feet (which
would not be forced into Gerald’s shoes) he might have been a little
princeling himself, backed by a hundred noble ancestors.
Marcia sank down on her knees beside him. ‘You little dear!’ she
exclaimed as she kissed him.
Gervasio was not used to caresses, and for a moment he drew back, his
brown eyes growing wide with wonder. Then a smile broke over his face,
and he reached out a timid hand and patted her confidingly on the
cheek. She kissed him again in pure delight, and taking him by the
hand, set out forthwith for the loggia.
‘_Ecco!_ my friends. Isn’t he beautiful?’ she demanded.
Mr. Copley and Sybert sprang to their feet and came forward
interestedly.
‘Who denies now that it’s clothes that make the man?’
‘I can’t say but that he was as picturesque last night,’ her uncle
returned; ‘but he’s undoubtedly cleaner this morning.’
‘Where’s Gerald?’ asked Sybert. ‘Let’s see what he has to say of the
new arrival.’
Gerald, who had but just discovered Marcellus, was delightedly romping
in the garden with him, and was dragged away under protest and
confronted with the stranger. He examined him in silence a moment and
then remarked, ‘He’s got my cloves on.’ And suddenly, as a terrible
idea dawned upon him, he burst out: ‘Is he a new bruvver? ‘Cause if he
is you can take him away.’
‘Oh, my dear!’ his mother remonstrated in horror. ‘He’s a little
Italian boy.’
Gerald was visibly relieved. He examined Gervasio again from this new
point of view.
‘I want to go wifout my shoes and socks,’ he declared.
‘Oh, but he’s going to wear shoes and socks, too, as soon we can get
some to fit him,’ said Marcia.
‘Do you want to see my lizhyards?’ Gerald asked insinuatingly, suddenly
making up his mind and pulling Gervasio by the sleeve.
Gervasio backed away.
‘You must talk to him in Italian, Gerald,’ Sybert suggested. ‘He’s like
Marietta: he doesn’t understand anything else. I should like to have
another look at those lizards myself,’ he added. ‘Come on, Gervasio,’
and taking a boy by each hand, he strode off toward the fountain.
Mrs Copley looked after them dubiously, but Marcia interposed, ‘He’s a
dear little fellow, Aunt Katherine, and it will be good for Gerald to
have some one to play with.’
‘Marcia’s right, Katherine; it won’t hurt him any, and I doubt if the
boy’s Italian is much worse than Bianca’s.’
* * * * *
Thus Gervasio’s formal installation at the villa. For the first week or
so his principal activity was eating, until he was in the way of
becoming as rosy-cheeked as Gerald himself. During the early stages of
his career he was consigned to the kitchen, where François served him
with soup and macaroni to the point of bursting. Later, having learned
to wield a knife and fork without disaster, he was advanced to the
nursery, where he supped with Gerald under the watchful eye of Granton.
Taken all in all, Gervasio proved a valuable addition to the household.
He was sweet-tempered, eager to please, and pitifully grateful for the
slightest kindness. He became Gerald’s faithful henchman and implicitly
obeyed his commands, with only an occasional rebellion when they were
over-oppressive. He was quick to learn, and it was not long before he
was jabbering in a mixture of Italian and English with a vocabulary
nearly as varied as Gerald’s own.
The first week following Gervasio’s advent was a period of comparative
quiet at the villa, but one fairly disturbing little contretemps
occurred to break the monotony.
The boy had been promised a reward of sweet chocolate as soon as he
should learn to wear shoes and stockings with a smiling face—shoes and
stockings being, in his eyes, an objectionable feature of civilization.
When it came time for payment, however, Marcia discovered that there
was no sweet chocolate in the house, and, not to disappoint him, she
ordered Gerald’s pony-carriage, and taking with her the two boys and a
groom, set out for Castel Vivalanti and the baker’s. Had she stopped to
think, she would have known that to take Gervasio to Castel Vivalanti
in broad daylight was not a wise proceeding. But it was a frequent
characteristic of the Copleys that they did their thinking afterward.
The spectacle of Gervasio Delano in a carriage with the _principino_,
and in new clothes, with his face washed, very nearly occasioned a mob
among his former playmates. The carriage was besieged, and Marcia found
it necessary to distribute a considerable largess of copper before she
could rid herself of her following.
As she laughingly escaped from the crowd and drove out through the
gateway a man stepped forward from the corner of the wall and motioned
her to stop. For a moment a remembrance of her aunt’s _rencontre_ with
the Camorrist flashed through her mind, and then she smiled as she
reflected that it was broad daylight and in full sight of the town. She
pulled the pony to a standstill and asked him what he wanted. He was
Gervasio’s stepfather, he said. They were poor, hard-working people and
did not have enough to eat, but they were very lonely without the boy
and wished to have him back. Even American princes, he added, couldn’t
take poor people’s children away without their permission. And he
finished by insinuating that if he were paid enough he might reconsider
the matter.
Marcia did not understand all that he said, but as Gervasio began to
cry, and at the same time clasped both hands firmly about the seat in
an evident determination to resist all efforts to dislodge him, she saw
what he meant, and replied that she would tell the police. But the man
evidently thought that he had the upper hand of the situation, and that
she would rather buy him off than let the boy go. With a threatening
air, he reached out and grasped Gervasio roughly by the arm. Gervasio
screamed, and Marcia, before she thought of possible consequences,
struck the man a sharp blow with the whip and at the same time lashed
the pony into a gallop. They dashed down the stony road and around the
corners at a perilous rate, while the man shouted curses from the top
of the hill.
They reached the villa still bubbling with excitement over the
adventure, and caused Mrs. Copley no little alarm. But when Marcia
greeted her uncle’s arrival that night with the story, he declared that
she had done just right; and without waiting for dinner, he remounted
his horse, and galloping back to Castel Vivalanti, rode straight up to
the door of the little _trattoria_, where the fellow was engaged in
drinking wine and cursing Americans. There he told him, before an
interested group of witnesses, that Gervasio was not his child; that
since he could not treat him decently he had forfeited all claim to
him; and that if he tried to levy any further blackmail he would find
himself in prison. Wherewith he wheeled his horse’s head about and made
a spectacular exit from the town. If anything were needed to strengthen
Gervasio’s position with Mr. Copley, this incident answered the purpose.
As a result of the adventure, Marcia, for the time, dropped Castel
Vivalanti from her calling-list and extended her acquaintance in the
other direction. She came to be well known as she galloped about the
country-side on a satin-coated little sorrel (born and bred in
Kentucky), followed by a groom on a thumping cob, who always
respectfully drew up behind her when she stopped. As often as she could
think of any excuse, she visited the peasants in their houses, laughing
gaily with them over her own queer grammar. It was an amused curiosity
which at first actuated her friendliness. Their ingenious comments and
naïve questions in regard to America proved an ever-diverting source of
interest; but after a little, as she understood them better, she grew
to like them for their own stanch virtues. When she looked about their
gloomy little rooms, with almost no furnishing except a few copper pots
and kettles and a tawdry picture of the Madonna, and saw what meagre,
straitened lives they led, and yet how bravely they bore them, her
amusement changed to respect. Their quick sympathy and warm
friendliness awakened an answering spark, and it was not long before
she had discovered for herself the lovable charm of the Italian peasant.
She explored, in the course of her rides, many a forgotten little
mountain village topping a barren crag of the Sabines, and held by some
Roman prince in almost the same feudal tenure as a thousand years ago.
They were picturesque enough from below, these huddling grey-stone
hamlets shooting up from the solid rock; but when she had climbed the
steeply winding path and had looked within, she found them miserable
and desolate beyond belief. She was coming to see the under side of a
great deal of picturesqueness.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, though life was moving in an even groove at Villa Vivalanti,
the same could not be said of the rest of Italy. Each day brought fresh
reports of rioting throughout the southern provinces, and travellers
hurrying north reported that every town of any size was under martial
law. In spite of reassuring newspaper articles, written under the eye
of the police, it was evident that affairs were fast approaching a
crisis. There was not much anxiety felt in the immediate neighbourhood
of Rome, for the capital was too great a stronghold of the army to be
in actual danger from mobs. The affair, if anything, was regarded as a
welcome diversion from the tediousness of Lent, and the embassies and
large hotels where the foreigners congregated were animated by a not
unpleasurable air of excitement.
Conflicting opinions of every sort were current. Some shook their heads
wisely, and said that in their opinion the matter was much more serious
than appeared on the surface. They should not be surprised to see the
scenes of the French Commune enacted over again; and they intimated
further, that since it had to happen, they were very willing to be on
hand in time to see the fun.
Many expressed the belief that the trouble had nothing to do with the
price of bread; the wheat famine was merely a pretext for stirring up
the people. It was well known that the universities, the younger
generation of writers and newspaper men, even the ranks of the army,
were riddled with socialism. What more likely than that the socialists
and the church adherents had united to overthrow the government,
intending as soon as their end was accomplished to turn upon each other
and fight it out for supremacy? It was the opinion of these that the
government should have adopted the most drastic measures possible, and
was doing very foolishly in catering to the populace by putting down
the _dazio_. Still others held that the government should have
abolished the _dazio_ long before, and that the people in the south did
very well to rise and demand their rights. And so the affairs of the
unfortunate Neapolitans were the subject of conversation at every
_table d’hôte_ in Rome; and the _forestieri_ sojourning within the
walls derived a large amount of entertainment from the matter.
Marcia Copley, however, had heard little of the gathering trouble. She
did not read the papers, and her uncle did not mention the matter at
home. He was too sick at heart to dwell on it uselessly, and it was not
a subject he cared to discuss with his niece. His family, indeed, saw
very little of him, for he had thrown himself into the work of the
Foreign Relief Committee with characteristic energy, and he spent the
most of his time in Rome. Marcia’s interest in sight-seeing had come to
a sudden halt since the afternoon of Tre Fontane. She had ventured into
the city only once, and then merely to attend to the purchase of
clothes for Gervasio. The Roystons, on that occasion, had been out when
she called at their hotel, and her feeling of regret was mingled
largely with relief as she left her card and retired in safety to Villa
Vivalanti.
She had not analysed her emotions very thoroughly, but she felt a
decided trepidation at the thought of seeing Paul. The trepidation,
however, was not altogether an unpleasant sensation. The scene in the
cloisters had returned to her mind many times, and she had taken
several brief excursions into the future. What would he say the next
time they met? Would he renew the same subject, or would he tacitly
overlook that afternoon, and for the time let everything be as it had
been before? She hoped that the latter would be the case. It would give
a certain piquancy to their relations, and she was not ready—just at
present—to make up her mind.
Paul, on his side, had also pondered the question somewhat. Events were
not moving with the rapidity he wished. Marcia, evidently, would not
come into Rome, and he could think of no valid excuse for going out to
the villa. His pessimistic forecast of events had proved true. Holy
Week found the Roystons still in the city, treating themselves to
orgies of church-going. As he followed his aunt from church to church
(there are in the neighbourhood of three hundred and seventy-five in
Rome, and he says they visited them all that week) he indulged in many
speculations as to the state of Marcia’s mind in regard to himself. At
times he feared he had been over-precipitate; at others, that he had
not been precipitate enough.
His aunt and cousins returned from a flying visit to the villa, with
the report that Marcia had adopted a boy and a dog and was solicitously
engaged with their education. ‘What did she say about me, Madge?’ Paul
boldly inquired.
‘She said you were a very impudent fellow,’ Margaret retorted; and in
response to his somewhat startled expression she added more
magnanimously: ‘You needn’t be so vain as to think she said anything
about you. She never even mentioned your name.’
Paul breathed a meditative ‘Ah!’ Marcia had not mentioned his name. It
was not such a bad sign, that: she was thinking about him, then. If
there were no other man—and he was vain enough to take her at her
word—nothing could be better for his cause than a solitary week in the
Sabine hills. He knew from present—and past—experience that an
Italian spring is a powerful stimulant for the heart.
On Tuesday of Holy Week Mrs. Royston wakened slightly from her
spiritual trance to observe that she had scarcely seen Marcia for as
much as a week, and that as soon as Lent was over they must have the
Copleys in to luncheon at the hotel.
‘Where’s the use of waiting till Lent’s over?’ Paul had inquired. ‘You
needn’t make it a function. Just a sort of—family affair. If you
invite them for Thursday, we can all go together to the tenebræ service
at St. Peter’s. As this is Miss Copley’s first Easter in Rome, she
might be interested.’
Accordingly a note arrived at the villa on Wednesday morning inviting
the family—Gerald included—to breakfast the next day with the
Roystons in Rome. On Thursday morning an acceptance—Gerald
excluded—arrived at the _Hôtel de Lourdres et Paris_, and was followed
an hour later by the Copleys themselves.
The breakfast went off gaily. Paul was his most expansive self, and the
whole table responded to his mood. It was with a sense of gratification
that Marcia saw her uncle, who had lately been so grave, laughingly
exchanging nonsense with the young man. She felt, though she would
scarcely have acknowledged it to herself, a certain property right in
Paul, and it pleased her subtly when he pleased other people. She sat
next to him at the table, and occasionally, beneath his laughter and
persiflage, she caught an undertone of meaning. So long as they were
not alone and he could not go beyond a certain point, she found their
relations on a distinctly satisfying basis.
In spite of Paul’s manœuvres, he did not find himself alone with Marcia
that afternoon. There was always a cousin in attendance. Mr. and Mrs.
Copley, declining the spectacle of the tenebræ in St. Peter’s—they had
seen it before—left shortly after luncheon. As they were leaving, Mr.
Copley remarked to Mrs. Royston—
‘I will entrust my niece to your care, and please do not lose sight of
her until you put her in my hands for the evening train. I wish no more
such escapades as we had the other day.’ And, to Marcia’s discomfort,
the adventures involving the rescue of Marcellus and Gervasio were
recounted in detail. For an unexplained reason, she would have
preferred the story of their origin to remain in darkness.
Paul’s face clouded slightly. ‘My objections to Sybert grow rapidly,’
he remarked in an undertone.
Marcia laughed. ‘If you could have seen him! He never spoke a word to
me all the way out in the train. He sat with his arms folded and a
frown on his brow, like—Napoleon at Moscow.’
Paul’s face brightened again. ‘Oh, I begin to like him, after all,’ he
declared.
* * * * *
Toward five o’clock that evening every carriage in the city seemed to
be bent for the Ponte Sant’ Angelo. A casual spectator would never have
chosen a religious function as the end of all this confusion. In the
tangle of narrow streets beyond the bridge the way was almost blocked,
and such progress as was possible was made at a snail’s pace. The
Royston party, in two carriages, not unnaturally lost each other. The
carriage containing Marcia, Margaret, and Paul, getting into the jam in
the narrow Borgo Nuovo, arrived in the piazza of St. Peter’s with
wheels locked with a cardinal’s coach. The cardinal’s coachman and
theirs exchanged an unclerical opinion of each other’s ability as
drivers. The cardinal advanced his head from the window with a mildly
startled air of reproof, and the Americans laughed gaily at the
situation. After a moment of scrutiny the cardinal smiled back, and the
four disembarked and set out on foot across the piazza, leaving the men
to sever the difficulty at their leisure. He proved an unexpectedly
cordial person, and when they parted on the broad steps he held out of
his hand with a friendly smile and after a moment of perplexed
hesitation the three gravely shook it in turn.
‘Do you think we ought to have kissed it?’ Marcia inquired. ‘I would
have done it, only I didn’t know how.’
Paul laughed. ‘He knew we weren’t of the true faith. No right-minded
Catholic would laugh at nearly spilling a cardinal in the street.’
They stood aside by the central door looking for Mrs. Royston and
Eleanor and watching the crowd surge past. Paul was quite insistent
that they should go in without the others, but Marcia was equally
insistent that they wait. She had an intuitive feeling that there was
safety in numbers.
For a wonder they presently espied Mrs. Royston bearing down upon them,
a small camp-stool clutched to her portly bosom, and Eleanor panting
along behind, a camp-stool in either hand.
Mrs. Royston caught sight of them with an expression of relief.
‘My dears, I was afraid I had lost you,’ she gasped. ‘We remembered,
just as we got to the bridge, that we hadn’t brought any chairs, and so
we went back for them. Paul, you should have thought of them yourself.
I suppose we’d better hurry in and get a good place.’
Paul patiently possessed himself of the chairs and followed the ladies,
with a glance at Marcia which seemed to say, ‘Is there this day living
a more exemplary nephew and gentleman than I?’
The tenebræ service on Holy Thursday is the one time in the year when
St. Peter’s may be seen at night. The great church looms vaster and
emptier and more solemn then than at any other time. The eye cannot
penetrate to the distant dome hidden in shadows. The long nave
stretches interminably into space, the chapels deepen and broaden until
they are churches themselves. The clustered pillars reach upward till
they are lost in the darkness. What the eye cannot grasp the
imagination seizes upon, and the vast interior grows and widens until
it seems to stretch out arms to inclose all Christendom itself. On this
one night it does inclose all Rome—nobility and peasants, Italians and
foreigners: those who are of the faith, and those who are merely
spectators; those who come to worship; those who come to be amused—St.
Peter’s receives them all with the same impartiality.
Standing outside, it had seemed to them that the whole city had flowed
through the doors; but within, the church was still approximately
empty. As they walked down the broad nave in the dimness of twilight,
Marcia turned to the young man beside her.
‘At first I didn’t think St. Peter’s was impressive—that is, compared
to Milan and Cologne and some of the other cathedrals—but it’s like
the rest of Rome, it grows and grows until——’
‘It comes to be the whole world,’ he supplied.
By the bronze baldacchino Mrs. Royston spread her camp-stools and sat
down.
‘This is the best place we could choose,’ she said contentedly as she
folded her hands. ‘We shan’t be very near the choir, but we can hear
just as well, and we shall have an excellent view of the altar-washing
and the sacred relics.’ She spoke in the tone of one who is picking out
a stall for a theatrical performance.
From time to time friends of either the Roystons or Marcia drifted up
and, having paused to chat a few minutes, passed on, giving place to
others. As one group left them with smiles and friendly bows, Marcia
turned to Paul, who was standing beside her.
‘It’s really dreadful,’ she said, ‘the way the foreigners take
possession of Rome. This might as well be a reception at the Embassy.
If I were the pope, I would put up a sign on the door of St. Peter’s
saying, “No _forestieri_ admitted.”’
‘Ah, but there are no _forestieri_ in the case of St. Peter’s; it
belongs to all nations.’
Marcia smiled at the young man and turned away; and as she turned she
caught, across an intervening stream of heads, a face, looking in her
direction, wearing about the eyes a curiously quizzical expression. It
was the face of a middle-aged woman—an interesting face—not exactly
beautiful, but sparkling with intelligence. It seemed very familiar to
Marcia, and as her eyes lingered on it a moment the quizzical
expression gave place to one of amused friendliness. The woman smiled
and bowed and passed on. Marcia bowed vaguely, and then it flashed
through her mind who it was—the lady who wrote, the ‘greatest gossip
in Rome,’ whom she had met at the studio tea so many weeks before. She
had forgotten all about her unknown friend of that day, and now she
turned quickly to Paul to ask her identity. Paul was engaged in
answering some question of his aunt’s, and before she could gain his
attention again a hush swept over the great interior and everything
else was forgotten in the opening chorus of the ‘Miserere.’
The twilight had deepened, and the great white dome shone dimly far
above the blackness of the crowd. The voices of the papal choir swelled
louder and louder in the solemn chant, and high and separate and alone
rose the clear, flute-like treble of the ‘Pope’s Nightingale.’ And as
an undertone, an accompaniment to the music, the shuffle and murmur of
thirty thousand listeners rose and fell like the distant beat of surf.
The candles on the altar showed dimly above their heads. As the service
continued, one by one the lights were extinguished. After half an hour
or so, the waiting and intensity grew wearing. The crowd was pressing
closer, and Margaret Royston craned her neck, vainly trying to discover
how many candles remained. Paul, with ready imagination, was answering
his aunt’s questions as to the meaning of the ceremonies. Margaret
turned to Marcia.
‘Poke this young priest in front of me,’ she whispered, and ask him in
Italian how many candles are left.’
The young priest, overhearing the words, turned around with an amused
smile, obligingly stood on his tiptoes to look at the altar, and
replied in English that there were three.
‘Thank you,’ said Margaret; ‘I didn’t suppose you could talk English.’
‘I was born in Troy, New York.’
‘Really?’ she laughed, and the two fell to comparing the rival merits
of the Hudson and the Tiber.
He proved most friendly, carefully explaining to the party the
significance of the service and the meaning of the different symbols.
Mrs. Royston looked reproachfully at her nephew, whose stories, it
transpired, did not accord with fact.
‘You really couldn’t expect me to know as much as a professional, Aunt
Eleanor,’ he unblushingly expostulated. My explanations were more
picturesque than his, at any rate; and if they aren’t true, they ought
to be.’
The last candle was finally out, and for a moment the great interior
remained in darkness. Then a noise like the distant rattle of thunder
symbolized the rending of the veil, and in an instant lights sprang out
from every arch and pier and dome. A long procession of cardinals,
choristers, and acolytes wound singing to the high altar—the ‘Altar of
the World.’
Marcia stood by the railing and watched their faces as they filed past.
They were such thoughtful, spiritual, kindly faces that her respect for
this great power—the greatest power in Christendom—increased
momentarily. She felt a sort of shame to be there merely as a
spectator. She looked about at the faces of the peasants, and thought
what a barren, barren existence would be theirs without this church,
which promised the only joy they could ever hope to have.
When the ceremony of washing the altar with oil and wine was ended, the
young priest bade them a friendly good evening. He could not wait for
the holy relics, he said; they had supper at the monastery at seven
o’clock. He hastily added, however, in response to the smile trembling
on Margaret’s lips, ‘Not that they are not the true relics and very
holy, but I have seen them several times before.’
The relics were exhibited to the multitude from St. Veronica’s balcony
far above their heads. Paul whispered to Marcia with a little laugh:
‘Our friend the cardinal would be gratified, would he not, to see his
heretics bowing before St. Veronica’s handkerchief? Look,’ he added,
‘at that peasant woman in her blue skirt and scarlet kerchief. She has
probably walked fifty miles, with her baby strapped to a board. I
suppose she thinks the child will have good fortune the rest of his
life If he just catches a glimpse of a splinter of the true cross.’
Marcia looked at the woman standing beside her, a pilgrim from the
Abruzzi, judging from her dress. She was raising an illumined face to
the little balcony where the priest was holding above their heads the
holy relic. In her arms she held a baby whose face she was turning
upward also, while she murmured prayers in his ears. Marcia’s glance
wandered away over the crowd—the poor pilgrim peasants whose upturned
faces, worn by work and poverty, were softened for the moment into a
holy awe. Then she raised her eyes to the balcony where the priest in
his white robes was holding high above his head the shining silver
cross in which was incased St. Peter’s dearest relic, the tiny splinter
of the true cross. The light was centred on the little balcony; every
eye in the great concourse was fixed upon it. The priest was fat, his
face was red, his attitude theatrical. The whole spectacle was
theatrical. A quick revulsion of feeling passed over her. A few moments
before, as she watched the procession of cardinals, she had been ready
to admit the spiritual significance of the scene; now she saw only its
spectacular side. It was merely a play, a delusion got up to dazzle the
poor peasants. This church was the only thing they had in life, and,
after all, what did it do for them? What could St. Veronica’s
handkerchief, what could a splinter of the true cross, do to brighten
their lives? It was superstition, not religion, that was being offered
to the peasants of Italy.
She looked again across the sea of upturned faces and shook her head.
‘Isn’t it pitiful?’ she asked.
‘Isn’t it picturesque?’ echoed Paul.
‘That priest up there knows he’s deluding all these people, and he’s
just as solemn as if he believed in the relics himself. The church is
still so hopelessly mediaeval!’
‘That’s the beauty of the church,’ Paul objected. ‘It’s still
mediaeval, while the rest of the world is so hopelessly
nineteenth-century. I like to see these peasants believing in St.
Veronica’s handkerchief and the power of the sacred Bambino to cure
disease. I think it’s a beautiful exhibition of faith in a world where
faith is out of fashion. I don’t blame the priests in the least for
keeping it up. It’s a protest against the age. They’re about the only
artists left. If I were a priest I’d learn prestidigitation, and
substantiate the efficacy of the relics with a miracle or so.’
‘It’s simply fostering superstition.’
‘Take their superstition away and you deprive them of their most
picturesque quality.’
‘You don’t care for anything but what’s picturesque!’ she exclaimed in
a tone half scornful.
Paul did not answer. The ceremony was over and the crowd was beginning
to pour out. They turned with the stream and wedged their way toward
the right-hand entrance, near which their carriages were waiting. Paul
manœuvred very adroitly so that the crowd should separate them from the
rest of the party at the door.
‘I will tell you what I care for most,’ he said in her ear as they
pushed out into the portico. ‘I care for you.’
She perceived his drift too late and looked back with an air of dismay.
The others were lost in the moving mass of heads.
Paul saw her glance and laughed. ‘You’re going to take good care that
we shan’t be alone together, aren’t you?’
Marcia echoed his laugh. ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged frankly; ‘I’m trying
to.’
‘It doesn’t matter. My time’s coming; you can’t put it off.’ His hand
touched hers hanging at her side and he clasped it firmly. ‘Come here;
we’ll get out of this crowd,’ and he pushed on outside and drew back
into a corner by one of the tall columns. The crowd surged past,
flowing down the steps like a river widening to the sea. Below them the
piazza was black with a tossing, moving mass of carriages and people.
The mass of the Vatican at their left loomed a black bulk in the night,
its hundreds of windows shining in the reflected lights of the piazza
like the eyes of a great octopus. At another time Marcia might have
looked very curiously toward the palace. She might have wondered if in
one of those dark windows Leo was not standing brooding over the throng
of worshippers who had come that day. How must a pope feel to see
thirty thousand people go out from under his roof—go out freely to
their homes—while he alone may not step across the threshold? At
another time she would have paused to play a little with the thought,
but now her attention was engaged. Paul still held her hand.
He squared himself in front of her, with his back to the crowd. ‘Have
you been thinking about what I asked you?’
Had she been thinking! She had been doing nothing else. She looked at
him reproachfully. ‘Let’s not talk about it. The more I think, the more
I don’t know.’
‘That’s an unfortunate state to be in. Perhaps I can help you to make
up your mind. Are you going to be in love with me some day,
Marcia—soon?’ he persisted.
‘I—I don’t know.’
He leaned toward her, with his face very close to hers. She shrank back
further into the shadow. ‘There they are!’ she exclaimed, as she caught
sight of Eleanor’s head above the crowd, and she tried to draw her hand
away.
‘Never mind them. They won’t be here for three minutes. You’ve got time
enough to answer me.’
‘Please, not now—Paul,’ she whispered.
‘When?’ he insisted, keeping a firm hold of her hand. ‘The next time I
see you?’
‘Yes—perhaps,’ and she turned away to greet the others.