She was relieved, when after dinner Egidio put on his hat and went out,
not deigning any explanation, as was his custom. She took a book, and
settled herself in an armchair by the lamp, but not to read; her eyes
followed the printed lines but her thoughts were far away.
"If I had accepted Angelescu's offer," she mused, "what a difference it
would have made. Why, oh why was I such a fool? I refused a good man, a
loyal man,--I knew he was true and loyal--to come to this!"
Her eyes rose involuntarily to a portrait of her husband, the tribute of
an enthusiastic if untalented pupil, which he had considered good enough
for his wife's sitting-room, and she shuddered. The picture though
poorly painted, was a striking likeness, almost a caricature. The
cunning expression of the handsome eyes, the slight twist of the nose,
the repulsive sensual mouth half hidden by beard and moustache were
faithfully if naively depicted. The right hand hung over the back of a
chair, a hand in curious contrast to the face, a well-formed strong but
delicate artist's hand, but even here the slight grasping curve of the
pointed fingers, the thickness of the thumb betrayed the nature of the
man.
Often she had wished to destroy the picture, or at least to take it
down, hide it, banish it from her sight, but Egidio would hear of no
such thing; it seemed to possess, to fill the room with a hated presence
as Valentini filled her life. Even when she turned her back upon it,
the knowledge of its presence obtruded itself upon her inner
consciousness, she could not escape it.
To-night, however, it seemed to have lost some of its customary power.
With a defiant lift of her shoulder she rose and went to her
writing-desk, a monumental piece of furniture which had once belonged to
a Cardinal, and opening a secret drawer, reminiscent of inquisitorial
mysteries, took out her old writing-case, shabby and worn, with one of
the hinges broken. The lock still held, however, and she opened it with
a key on her watch-chain. Inside were the sketch Angelescu had made of
her feeding the gulls, and his letter to her. She returned to her seat
and studied the drawing; the paper was yellow, the pencil-strokes faded
and rubbed, but the little sketch had kept its air of freshness and
force, the girlish figure seemed to defy the elements with all the
ignorant courage of youth.
"And that was I," said Ragna softly; it seemed to her that it must have
been some other girl, long, long ago, in the dim ages past.
"And it was not eight years ago," she said, counting on her fingers. She
put the drawing down and turned to the letter.
"What a blind fool I was not to understand! Oh if only, if only--! But I
must not see him now, it would not be right. I must dree my weird.
Besides he will have forgotten me long ago--ah but will he? He said in
his letter 'now and always,' and he meant it, but so much water has
flowed under the bridges!"
She sank into a reverie, calling up his every word and look, his steady
dog-like eyes, the firm grasp of his hand. She tried to imagine what her
life would have been like all these years, if instead of Egidio she had
had him by her side. A knock on the door startled her; she would not
have been surprised to see Angelescu himself on the threshold, indeed
she all but expected it for an instant, but the door opening, only
disclosed the familiar figure of Carolina, who came forward timidly,
quite stripped of her usually assured manner.
"What is it, my girl?" asked Ragna kindly.
"Signora," she answered, with lowered head, "I do not know how to say it
nor what you will think of me, but I have come to give notice, I wish to
go."
"You wish to go!" exclaimed Ragna with the greatest surprise, "you wish
to leave me? Why, Carolina, what in the world do you mean by that?"
The girl stood nervously rolling and unrolling a corner of her apron
between her fingers, her eyes on the floor.
"It is just that, Signora, I wish to go."
"Are you going to be married?"
"No, Signora!"
"Then why? Are you not happy here? You have been with me so long, to
leave suddenly like this, what is the matter?"
"Don't ask me Signora, I--I can't stay."
"Carolina," said Ragna sternly, "look at me!"
The maid raised unwilling eyes to her mistress's face.
"Don't you know that that is no way to speak to me? Now tell me frankly,
why it is you wish to leave me after all these years. Have I not been
kind to you? What cause have you for complaint? Think, what will Mimmo
do without you?"
The girl began to cry and dabbed ineffectually at her eyes with her
apron.
"Stop crying and tell me!" cried Ragna, exasperated.
"Signora mia, Signora mia," sobbed the maid, "I do not want to tell you,
I do not want to add to your troubles. Please don't ask me!"
Ragna's face grew hard, she more than guessed what was coming.
"I command you to speak out and hide nothing," she said in a tense
voice.
"It is on account of the Signor Padrone, Signora."
"Ah!" said Ragna, "go on, what has he done?"
"Signora," said the maid hanging her head and working her toe in and out
of the heelless slipper she still sometimes wore in the house. "The
Signor Padrone used to say things to me when he passed me, and sometimes
he would chuck me under the chin or pinch my arm, but I thought nothing
of it, it is the way of many Signori and means nothing."
"Go on," said Ragna coldly, as the girl paused.
"Well, Signora, he got more pressing, and I kept out of his way all I
could, and then one night he surprised me in my room--"
"Why did you not call out?"
"I did, Signora, but you know where my room is." Ragna did,--down at the
end of a long corridor shut off by a door from the rest of the house.
Why, oh why had she been so blind?
"And Cook was out, nursing her sick mother. Afterwards I said to him: 'I
will tell the Signora,' and he said: 'You will do nothing of the kind.
If you dare so much as hint to her I will throw you out neck and crop
without a character. Be good, Linella, and I will give you a present. I
said I did not want his present, that I was not afraid of being turned
out. Then he grew very angry and put his hands round my neck, and said
he would strangle me if I would not promise to keep quiet.
'_Padronissimo!_' I answered, 'but if you kill me the police will get
you!' He was very angry, but that frightened him, and he let his hands
drop and I stood facing him with my arms crossed,--so! 'Look here,
Carolina,' he said suddenly in a wheedling voice, 'you are fond of the
Padrona, I know, if you tell her it will grieve her and you do not want
to do that!' Signora! he had the courage to say that, after the way he
treats you and all! But it was true and I knew I would have to be quiet,
so I said, 'If I do say nothing it will be because of the Signora and
not for you. I despise you, I hate you, but I do not fear you, you
cannot harm me!' 'Have a care!' he said, and his eyes got like those of
the Evil One in that picture in the studio. 'You are a little devil,
Carolina, but I am more than a match for you. I tell you, beware!'
Signora, that fired my blood, I stood up to him and I said: 'You are the
husband of my Padrona, but you are not my master. I will keep silence
because I don't want to hurt her, she has always been kind to me, but if
you ever dare touch me again I shall tell her; it is better that she
should know than be shamed in her own house, and I will kill you, I
swear it on the Cross!' He sneered at me, Signora. 'And the police you
mention so freely,' he said, 'what of them?' 'I will tell them I did it
to save my honour.' 'Honour,' he said, 'you guttersnippet, who would
believe you? Do you think they don't know your story in Questura?' It
made me mad, I took my scissors from the table and I flew at him--he
nearly broke my wrist wrenching them from me, but not before I had
scratched him well. 'Little viper!' he yelled, 'assassin!' I thought he
was going to kill me, but he turned and went away."
Ragna had followed every word, every gesture, with a sickening horror;
she had imagined some tale of annoyance, but not this, and the leer of
the portrait on the wall seemed to confirm every word of the girl's
tale.
"Well, my poor child, has,--has he,--?"
The girl threw herself impulsively on her knees, beside her mistress and
lifted the hem of her skirt to her lips.
"Signora mia," she moaned, "you are too good, you are an angel! Any
other lady would have thrown me into the street without hearing me out."
"Hush, my poor girl," Ragna interrupted, "you are a victim and to be
pitied. How should I blame you, since your wrong is partly my fault, I
should have seen, should have guessed--"
"Signora, don't worry about me, I have had trouble before, as you know,
and no one can blame me for what is not my fault since you don't."
Ragna looked at the girl in surprise at the simplicity with which she
accepted the _fait accompli_, though it was characteristic of her and
her race. She could see no reason for weeping over spilt milk, hers was
the rational and childlike philosophy of the people--"_cosa fatta capo
ha_," and a shrug of the shoulders for the inevitable. The one thought
is to "rimediare" in the present. This state of mind appeared to Ragna
so entirely enviable and sent her back over so long a train of thought
in which she viewed her own experience for the first time with new eyes,
and perceiving the uselessness of her futile beating against the bars of
her fate, that with difficulty she brought herself back to a sense of
the present. She remembered that the maid had not answered her last
question.
"Tell me, Carolina, since you did not come to me at once, what has
obliged you to speak now?"
"Signora," said the girl passionately, "the Padrone looks at me from
under his eyebrows, in a way I don't like--I said I was not afraid but I
am. I hate him, I can't breathe the same air with him, and before he
does anything to me,--or before I go mad and kill him, it is better for
me to go."
Ragna stroked the maid's hair absent-mindedly; the Venetian had been
with her more than five years now; it would be hard to part with her,
for she was entirely devoted to her mistress and the children,
especially Mimmo, but it was clearly impossible to keep her longer.
Ragna sighed.
"I am afraid you are right, Carolina. Yes, you must go, although you
know how sorry I shall be to lose you. We will talk it over to-morrow,
it is late now and I am tired. Run away to bed."
Carolina took her mistress's hand and pressed her lips fervently upon
it.
"God bless you, Signora, and may you sleep well!" She closed the door
silently after her.
Ragna sat on in her armchair, immersed in thought, bowed down by this
new burden of vicarious shame, outraged and indignant. As the clock
struck twelve she heard her husband's latchkey grate in the outer door
and she straightened herself up with flushed cheeks. "I will have it out
with him here and now," she thought.
"Egidio!" she called, as his step sounded in the passage.
He entered the room, an expression of annoyed surprise on his face,
called forth by his finding her still up.
"Have you taken to sitting up for me?" he grunted.
"I have been waiting for you, there is something I must speak to you
about."
"Well, out with it then, don't keep me waiting all night!"
He leaned against a console, his overcoat unbuttoned and thrown back,
his black felt hat pulled down over his eyes, one hand thrust in a
pocket, the other brandishing his Tuscan cigar, the villainous fumes of
which filled the air.
"What are you going to do about Carolina?" she asked without preamble.
"Carolina?" he said, "why should I do anything? What is Carolina to me?
You have been sitting up all this time to ask me a fool's question like
that? You should go to bed, your head is tired, _ti gira ta testa_!"
"Carolina," she returned steadily, "has good cause for complaint against
you."
He tapped his forehead with his forefinger.
"You are mad, _mia cara_," he said with a short laugh, but she could see
the uneasy expression of his eyes.
"Have done with this fooling," said Ragna scornfully, "will you deny
that you have made Carolina your mistress? You had better not, you see I
know all."
He bent forward, an ugly look on his face.
"You lie! You spy on me and imagine things."
"It is you who lie, Egidio," said Ragna coldly. She was astonished at
her own coolness; passion had deserted her, she sat, calm and critical,
in the seat of judgment.
With a roar he came and stood over her.
"Take that back! How dare you! How dare you!"
"I am not deaf," said Ragna, "there is no occasion to shout. Please
lower your voice and try to behave like a gentleman for once. Go and
sit down," she continued without a quiver, "I have not finished yet and
I can't speak if you are towering over my chair. And please make up your
mind either to speak first and say your say, or else wait until I have
done, but don't interrupt me."
Her calmness, the low even tones of her voice imposed on him; raging at
her and at himself, he yet obeyed, albeit almost unconsciously, and
dropped on a chair under his own portrait.
"It is quite useless to deny or to bluster," said Ragna, "I know all, I
am sorry for Carolina, and I--"
"So that slut has been to you with her tale," he interrupted, "and you
believe her in preference to your husband. The lying hussy--! I'll teach
her--"
"Egidio," said the cold accusing voice, "she did not lie, she is a good
girl. With all due regard, the one liar in the case is--"
"You dare call me a liar!" he roared, rising from his seat. She waived
him back again. "When I was a little boy in school, Cardinal Ferri used
to call me up and say--"
"Yes, yes," she said wearily, "that is an old story, I have heard it
many times. The good Cardinal was not infallible, or else you have
changed since--" He was choking with inarticulate rage; she continued,
"However, that is not the question; what I have been trying to find out
is: what are you going to do about Carolina?"
"I shall throw the fool out of my house," he said sullenly.
"You can't do that, she is going of her own accord; but you owe her
reparation."
"Reparation!" he raved, "Carolina! reparation! Let her show her face
before me again--Reparation! She shall have all she wants and more too!"
Carolina, who, aroused by the noise of her master's rage, was listening
at the key-hole slunk away and double-locked herself into her room,
where she spent the greater portion of the night on her knees before the
little image of the Virgin beseeching protection.
Egidio bounded to Ragna's chair and shook his fist in her face.
"I'll have you to understand that I won't have this sort of thing. I am
master in my own house."
"Say harem!" she suggested. His violence left her unmoved,
superficially, at least; she only saw how ridiculous he looked, stamping
his foot, shaking his fist, his face inflamed and swollen, the eyes
blood-shot and starting from their sockets. She laughed.
"My dear Signor Valentini, if you could only see how extremely ludicrous
you make yourself!"
With an oath he rushed at her, but she moved not a muscle and the
derisive smile never left her face. It cowed him, and with a demented
gesture he jammed his hat down over his eyes and flung out of the room.
With shaking fingers Ragna put the drawing and the letter back into the
writing-case and returned it to the secret drawer. She felt the effect
of the scenes she had just been through, her head was dull and heavy,
her senses numb. She went to the dining-room and poured herself a glass
of water, then taking the lamp--she had to steady it with both hands,
she went upstairs and passed through the children's room on the way to
her own, pausing an instant by Mimmo's cot. He lay, moist and rosy, his
fair curls tossed back on the pillow; one arm was thrown up and out, the
other by his side; the long dark lashes swept his cheek--he was the
picture of childish innocence and health. Beppino lay breathing heavily
his face puckered to a frown, his fists clenched; he was a handsome
child, but lacked Mimmo's winsomeness. Ragna set down the lamp and
pulled up the covers about Mimmo's chest where he had thrown them back.
A lump rose in her throat.
"Oh, my little child, my poor little child--that you should have to call
that man 'father'!"
Afraid to stop longer, lest in her agitation she should wake the
children, she took up the lamp again and went on to her own room. Too
weary to sleep, she tossed restlessly on her bed, pressing her cool
fingers to her hot forehead and burning eyes. The interview with
Carolina, the subsequent scene with her husband, repeated themselves
over and over in her tired brain; the demoniac mask of Egidio's which
had scared her vision, seemed branded on her very soul like some horrid
Medusa-head. And the effect of that exhibition of impotent rage had been
that of the Medusa; she had felt herself turning to stone, had almost
felt the wells of common human feeling dry up in her heart. Certainly
she was no longer conscious of the slightest bond of human interest
between herself and this man; nay, to her he had become the _Beast_, no
longer a man at all. And she was subject to this Beast, his slave, his
chattel, his wife! The name was a mockery. Virginia was a wife indeed,
Virginia, happy with her husband and children, living her busy, blessed
life in the house she loved. But this--no marriage but a hateful
bondage. It was an immoral contradiction to all right living and
thinking. Could any man-made law or social convention justify the
iniquity of this horror? Ragna wondered dully why she had not been able,
like Carolina, to accept the consequences of her weakness. She saw now
in the clear light of unsparing self-study, how at the time of her
marriage she had wilfully blinded herself to what had been patent to the
eyes of Virginia, how she had weakly let the consideration of her social
security outweigh the fundamental instincts of her nature. But it was
not in the spirit of calm acceptance that she thus put to the test
motives and conduct; she was in no condition for dispassionate
investigation or conclusion; her nature, raw and abraded by the events
of the day and still more by the cumulative effect of all the preceding
days, seethed in a state of bitter revolt. She longed with a fierce, mad
desire to straighten her back, to throw off the burden that galled her,
to break once and for all the chains that degraded her in her own eyes.
No one who saw her as she was now, fierce-eyed, feverish, her long hair
unbound and streaming over the pillow would have known her for the calm
stately woman whose formal courtesy of manner was a by-word among her
friends. Rather she seemed a Valkyrie riding down the battling clouds,
challenging the thunder. It was the old Ragna of the storm-swept fjord,
but a Ragna who had eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, wild
with a sense of injustice, resentful of fate.
Gradually she grew calmer, the flame burnt itself out, and weary to the
core of her being she relaxed her aching limbs and abandoned her head
among the pillows. Dulled, numb, she was dozing off, when a voice seemed
to say in her ear: "Angelescu is in Florence." A slight smile parted her
dry lips and she fell asleep.