Castiglione had a sort of rule for avoiding Maria which worked
very well for a long time. There is a great sameness in the lives
of Roman ladies even now, and in a society which is numerically
small it is rarely hard to guess where the more important members
of it are. So long as Maria had lived in Via San Martino, not by
any means cut off from the world, but quite independent of it,
she had been in the habit of coming and going as she pleased. She
could slip out to the little oratory in Via Somma Campagna at seven
o’clock in the morning, she could put on her hat unknown to her
maid and go over to the station to post a letter, she could call a
cab and drive to Saint Peter’s, or she could take Leone with her
at a moment’s notice, on a fine day, for a walk in the outlying
quarters of the city, towards Santa Maria Maggiore. All these
things look very simple, unimportant, and easy, and it might be
supposed that she could have enjoyed the same small liberty after
she had moved back to the Palazzo Montalto.
But she could not. Whenever she went out, there was a footman on
duty in the hall, where the wide swinging door to the landing of
the grand staircase was never fastened except at night. If she was
allowed to go downstairs alone, the footman touched a bell that
rang in the porter’s lodge, and the porter was waiting for her
under the arched entrance, respectful but imposing, and by no means
allowing her to take a cab for herself at the stand, fifty paces
from the door. The cab must be called for her, and two of those on
the stand were privileged by turns, because the cabmen paid the
porter a percentage of what he allowed them to earn. Then, too, the
address to which she wished to be taken had to be given to him, and
he transmitted it to the cabman in a stern manner, as if he thought
the man certainly meant to take her somewhere else and must be
dealt with severely.
As for going out in her own carriage, that was quite an affair of
state, too, though old Telemaco still sat on the box. She could
not go to the telephone whenever she pleased and order him to come
when she wanted him. There was red tape in such matters. Maria had
to tell a footman, who had to tell another, who went downstairs
when he was ready and who was in no hurry to find the coachman; and
difficulties arose about horses which had never been heard of when
she had hired a pair by the month.
Moreover, Leone now had a tutor at home, and was taken to the
clerical Istituto Massimo every morning, because Montalto objected
to the public schools, and Maria was not able to argue the question.
‘Either you believe in our religion, or you do not, my dear,’ the
Count had said.
‘I hope I do,’ Maria had answered meekly.
‘In that case I cannot see how you can even think of sending Leone
to a school where no religion is taught.’
She could not answer this, though she had a suspicion that the boy
might be ‘taught religion’ in some other and better way than at
the day-school. Yet it was better to have him go to the Istituto
Massimo and come home for luncheon, than to lose him altogether
for three-quarters of the year, as she must if he were sent to the
Jesuit school of Mondragone in the country; and that seemed to be
the alternative in Montalto’s mind. He himself had been several
years at the latter place, but Leone had become necessary to him
and he wanted the boy at home. Maria submitted a little more
readily to his decision when she thought of Castiglione, who had
been through a public school and the military academy, and who,
according to her ideas, had no religion at all.
Leone’s schooling, the Count’s methodical habits, and the tiresome
formalities and traditions of existence in the great house combined
to make Maria’s days almost as monotonously regular in Rome as they
had been in Montalto; and as they closely resembled those of other
Roman ladies of the same age who had children to educate, it was
not hard for Castiglione to keep out of her way.
So far as society went it was made still easier, because even after
Christmas, when their mourning was slightly relaxed, Montalto was
evidently inclined to confine his acquaintance to the old-fashioned
and clerical houses, so far as any still existed, rather than to
extend it into the modern circles where Castiglione was more often
seen. Montalto made an exception for Giuliana Parenzo and her
husband.
Similar conditions being granted for any particular case, two
people can live a long time without meeting face to face, even in
Rome; and in a city like London they may not meet in a dozen years
if they wish to avoid each other.
Castiglione faced his life quietly and courageously, but there were
moments in which his intention weakened. At times it seemed to him
impossible that such a situation should last till his regiment left
Rome. Maria was a saint, he admitted, and he had no doubt at all
but that he was a man of honour and meant to respect his promise,
however quixotic it looked. But he did not ‘rise higher,’ as Maria
used to write him that he must, and still prayed that he might. On
the contrary, though he kept his word, he sometimes wished that he
had not given it; the roughly masculine side of his nature rebelled
against the higher life, till he asked himself why, after all, he
was living like a man under vows and avoiding the woman he loved,
for the sake of a dream that was quite past and could never visit
him again.
But these moods never lasted long. It was true that he had not
Maria’s faith in things unseen to help him, nor her beatific vision
of an eternal reward for earthly virtues; but, on the other hand,
he had a strong perception of what was right and wrong, in the
sense that conceives actions as morally noble or ignoble, and brave
or cowardly, and he guessed what Maria was undergoing. He had been
the cause of her suffering, and it would be dastardly to let her
outdo him in courage, knowing that she loved him still. In refusing
to see him she was making the greatest sacrifice she could, next to
the supreme one she had made when she had let her husband take her
back. Castiglione knew that. People who love in earnest do not stop
to ask if they are flattering themselves when they believe that
they are loved in return.
The soldier was not at all analytical, though he had so long led an
inward existence which no one suspected. He knew when his thoughts
were ignoble, and he despised them then and was disgusted with
himself; but during most of the time he merely looked upon the
exceptional life he was leading for Maria’s sake as a duty, and
therefore as something which must be done, whether he liked it or
not. He was rather a rough specimen of manhood, but his nature was
on large lines. Under grosser influences in early youth, he might
have turned out what women call a brute, and perhaps it was only
his love for Maria that had saved him from that. All men saints
have not been born like Bernard of Clairvaux, ethereal, spiritual,
eloquent, and already beings of another world. There have been very
human Augustines, too, and sorely tempted Anthonys without end, and
there have been denying Peters and doubting Thomases ever since
the beginning; and because some of them were men of like passions
with ourselves, most of us feel nearer to them than to the great
ascetics, and we understand them better.
In his thoughts Castiglione called Maria a saint, and compared her
to a Catherine of Siena rather than to a Magdalen; but she, too,
had her moments of passionate regret, if not of weakness; she, too,
was human still, and though she bore her pain like a martyr, she
loved like a loving woman.
Here ends such explanation and repetition as was needed to
make clear what soon happened to her, to her husband, and to
Castiglione. After many months of quiet, when it seemed to Maria
that nothing could ever happen again in her life beyond the daily
round of dull misery, fate took up the action again with sudden and
violent hands.
The two met by accident for a few moments, quite alone. It was
at a hotel, of all places in the world; at a quiet and rather
old-fashioned hotel which is patronised by the great of the earth
when they come to Rome unofficially, for their own pleasure. A
short time ago it was such a primitive place that the lift was
small and was worked from below, like most of those in Roman
private houses.
Now it happened that a certain young couple went to this hotel who
were nearly related to the Count of Montalto on the Spanish side
of his family, and who were of such exalted station that two smart
officers were told off to be at their disposal and to show them the
sights of Rome. One of these officers was Castiglione.
In the natural course of social events the Countess of Montalto
had written her name in the book which people of such overwhelming
importance keep at the porter’s lodge in hotels where they stop,
because cards cannot be left for them as for ordinary human beings,
on account of their inconvenient greatness. On the following day
the Countess was informed that she would be received at five
o’clock, and at three minutes to five her carriage stopped at the
door. The footman informed the porter that her Excellency the
Countess of Montalto came to see their Highnesses, and at the same
instant Castiglione, who was on duty, and in uniform, presented
himself to conduct the Countess upstairs.
It was rather a trying moment, for he had not been told who was
coming, and he was the last person whom Maria expected to see
there. As the footman opened the carriage door Castiglione put
forward his arm to help her out, and she laid her hand upon it as
lightly and indifferently as she could, but a thrill ran through
her to her very feet, and she felt how he stiffened his arm lest it
should shake. After the first glance of recognition they avoided
each other’s eyes.
The porter stalked solemnly before them to the lift, and a moment
later they were alone together in a space so small that they could
hardly keep from touching, while the cage began to ascend with
that extreme slowness which characterises the old-fashioned Roman
contrivances. Maria sat on the narrow little seat, feeling that she
dared not look up; Castiglione stood upright, squeezing his square
shoulders as far back into the corner as he could, and holding his
right hand on the handle of the sliding door. He breathed audibly,
and the lift crawled upwards.
It was almost unbearable for them both. To speak indifferently was
utterly impossible, and silence meant too much. Just as they were
reaching the first floor, Maria rose quickly, expecting to be let
out; but the cage did not stop.
They were face to face now, and very near together, so that
Castiglione distinctly felt her sharply drawn breath as she looked
up at him.
‘It is the next floor,’ he said unsteadily, for he could not take
his eyes from her now.
The meeting had been too sudden, too close; Maria could not bear
it, but Castiglione would have let his right hand be cut off at
the wrist, as it held the door, rather than have moved it towards
her. With the other he held his sabre close to his left side, and
his blue eyes gazed hungrily into hers. A moment more and the lift
would stop; there was only that moment left, for, without looking
away from him, she was aware of the landing just overhead. Then she
spoke.
‘I love you more than ever!’
The words came to him in a fierce whisper. She had never spoken in
that way, even in days of the short sweet dream that was all he had
left. His answer was in his eyes, and in the sudden pallor that
overspread his face, the ghastly white pallor of fair men who are
deeply moved.
Then the lift stopped, the door slid sideways in its grooves, and
he was leading the way through a wide corridor under the electric
light. Maria was not pale just then; there was a little dark red
flush in each cheek, for shame at what she had done.
Her visit was soon over, she hardly knew how, and when she came
out Castiglione was not to be seen. A servant offered to call for
the lift, but she refused it and almost ran down the stairs in her
haste to get out of the hotel. A quarter of an hour later she was
alone in her boudoir, sitting before the small wood fire with her
elbows on her knees and her chin supported on her clasped hands.
She was terrified when she thought of what she had done, and
an unreasoning fear of the future took possession of her. She
felt that she had broken her solemn promise and betrayed her
husband’s unbounded faith in her; for she knew how she had spoken
the half-dozen words, and that if Castiglione had taken her into
his arms then, her lips would have met his instantly, willingly,
passionately. It had not been possible there; but if they had been
in another place, could she have blamed him as she blamed herself?
And by and by, when it was late, perhaps she would hear the
familiar knock at her unlocked door, and the lips that had spoken
those fierce little whispered words to the man she loved would have
to say ‘Come in’ to the man whom she was pledged to honour. That
was the sum and result, after so many months of pain and prayer and
self-abasement, by which she had hoped to rise heavenwards. If only
the man had spoken first, she could have grasped at the straw of
self-excuse, she could have deluded herself with the thought that
she had been tempted. But he had been silent, he had stood quite
still, only looking at her, brave against himself and constant to
his plighted promise. It was she who had tempted him; that was what
she had come to!
There was only one way now, she would tear the thought of him from
her heart for ever, and trample out his memory as men stamp upon
the embers of the camp fire when the wind rises, lest the dry
grass be kindled, and they themselves be burnt to death in the
storm of flame. It was well that Montalto had taken her back and
that the dream had ended in that sharp agony; if there had been no
such waking it would have turned into a reality she shuddered to
think of.
She rose and went to her writing-table and opened a deep drawer.
It was there that she kept the small locked desk she had used in
Via San Martino, the one in which she had put away Castiglione’s
letters, meaning to burn them. With them there was also that letter
of her husband’s in which he had first spoken of reconciliation,
and she had never opened the writing-case since she had placed it
there.
It had been spring when she had left the little apartment, and
there had been no fire in any of the rooms. The fireplaces were
closed with painted boards, in the Italian way, and she had not
wished to excite her servants’ curiosity by taking out the board
and burning a quantity of papers on the clean hearth. Burnt paper
leaves its unmistakable black ash behind it, and the servants might
guess that she had destroyed old love-letters before going back to
her husband. Besides, she had thought them innocent then. She had
thought that some day she might find comfort in reading them over
and recalling the sweetest illusion of her life, the happy and
innocent dream of a love grown pure and true in years of waiting
and trial. The well-loved writing was dearer to her than she would
confess even to herself.
But those letters must be burnt now. She was alone, for Montalto
was hardly ever at home at that hour, and Leone was busy at his
late afternoon lesson with his tutor, after having been out till
nearly sunset. The small fire was burning well, too, and it would
be a matter of only two or three minutes to destroy everything; and
it must be done at once, while she felt the courage to do it.
She lifted the case out of the drawer and set it on the table
before her, turning up the shaded light she used for writing. It
was a little old desk that had belonged to her grandmother, made
of ebony and inlaid with metal and mother-of-pearl in the happily
forgotten taste of the Second Empire. It was of the old sloping
shape, made so that when it was opened the upper part turned down
in front, continuing the inclined plane to the level of the table,
to give enough space for writing; it was one of those primitive
attempts at a convenient travelling writing-case which had seemed
marvels of ingenuity in those days, and look so hopelessly clumsy
to our modern eyes. But Maria’s grandmother had used it for many
years, and it had a lock. Everything could be locked in those days,
though most of the keys were absurdly simple. Maria looked at it,
and remembered that the folding board was covered on the inside
with very faded and threadbare purple velvet on which there were
three or four inkstains; and when the outer cover was down the
upper half of the folding board made a second lid which could be
turned down on the first, and there was a little silk tag fastened
to it, by which it could be moved. Under this second lid was the
body of the desk, a space large enough to contain a good many
papers.
Maria sat at the table with the case before her, and her hands upon
it. She meant to burn all the letters, except Montalto’s, without
reading them. That would be the only way, and it would not take
more than two or three minutes; yet she hesitated, though she had
already taken the little key from the chain on which she had always
carried it.
Might she not at least think for the last time of those dear words?
They had been quite innocent. If worse had come to worst she would
have shown them even to her husband. They were not eloquent, for
Castiglione had small gift for writing. They were not the rough and
uncouth love-letters that such a man might have written; for the
very essence of the lost dream had been that it was to ignore the
earthly love and look forward to the spiritual. He had tried to
follow whither she meant to lead, and what he had written was the
sincere effort, the pathetically imperfect effort, to see something
heavenly through eyes not used to call up the unreal in visions.
She remembered well the awkward wording of his sentences, and the
way he had groped at the meaning of what seemed so clear to her.
He could understand whatever had to do with honour, with courage,
and even with sacrifice, if it were for her sake. But heavenly
things were quite beyond him, and even the earthly paradise she had
tried to show him seemed very complicated. Yet he would try to make
himself comprehend it because all her thoughts were beautiful, and
because she had taught him where true honour lay, in honouring her
honour, and in kneeling at the shrine of her purity, he, a poor
material man.
Her purity! She remembered how the word had looked in his bold
handwriting; and though she was alone, the flush of shame rose and
burned her cheek, so that she laid the back of her cold hand to the
spot to cool it; for her own words were whispered again in her ears.
That echo decided her. There was no time to be lost. It had all
been a lie from the day when he had come to her pretty booth at
the Kermess. Such dreams were inventions of the devil, and nothing
but rank poison. She loved Castiglione more than ever, as woman
loves man, fiercely, desperately, very sinfully, very shamefully.
That was what her whisper had told him plainly enough. Her cold
hands pressed her burning cheeks again, but there was no hesitation
left. She was alone, the fire was burning, and surely no one would
disturb her during the next five minutes.
She thrust the small key into the lock and turned it. It stuck a
little and she pushed it in and out, and turned it to the right
and left with almost feverish haste, till she heard the click of
the tiny bolt, and she lifted the folding board towards her on the
table. Her fingers sought the little faded silk tag by which the
second lid was to be lifted, but it must have been jammed in when
she had last shut the case. She took the first thing that lay under
her hand, a sharp steel letter-opener in the shape of a sword, and
she forced the point a little way in between the lid and the edge
of the ebony case, pressing hard on the little gold hilt. The lid
flew up suddenly on its hinges and fell forwards towards her.
Then her heart failed her. The desk was empty.
She uttered a sort of faltering little cry, and she fell back in
her chair with starting eyes and parted lips, her hands still
grasping the open lid. In the wild confusion of her horror and
the frantic effort of her memory to recall something that had
never been, she was mad for a moment. Had she burnt everything and
forgotten? Or had she put the papers in some safer place, and lost
all recollection of what she had done?
That was impossible. She never forgot what she did, and she had
thought too often of the letters not to be sure that she had last
seen them there. Some one had forced the desk and taken them.
The key had not turned easily, as it had always turned, because
somebody had tampered with the lock. The little silk tag of the
inner lid had been jammed inside by a hand unfamiliar with it.
The details flashed upon her quickly, and in half a minute she
understood that she had forgotten nothing. She had left the letters
in the desk, and they were no longer there. Some one had stolen
them all, and her husband’s letter with them.
She grew slowly cold with fear as she closed the empty desk and put
it into the drawer again; and once more that hideous thought rose
up and tormented her. Montalto had come back to be revenged upon
her for his wrongs, slowly and surely; and that was not all, for he
had come secretly to her room when she was out of the house and had
stolen her letters, for a weapon against her if he needed one.
Who else in the house would have dared to take them?