Mae was very much ashamed of herself the next morning. She had been
restored in a measure to popular favor, through Eric, the day before.
Edith and Albert were home from Frascati, when Eric made his raid
bravely on their forces combined with those of Mrs. Jerrold. He advanced
boldly. “It’s all nonsense, child, as she is,” he said. “It was natural
enough, to talk with the man,” for Mae had made a clean breast of her
misdoings to him, to the extent of saying that they had chatted after
the beggar left. “Do forgive her, poor little proud tot, away across the
sea from her mother. Albert, you’re as hard as a rock, and that Edith
has no spirit in her,” he added, under his breath. This remark made
Albert white with rage. Nevertheless, he put in a plea for his wayward,
reckless little sister, with effect. After a few more remarks from Mrs.
Jerrold, Mae came out of the ordeal; was treated naturally, and, as we
have seen, accompanied Mrs. Jerrold to the play the night before.
Now, it was the next day. Mrs. Jerrold breakfasted in her own room
again, and spent the hours in writing home letters full of the Peter
and Paul reminiscences and quotations. Norman and Eric left for the
Costanzi, and Albert and Edith, armed with books, and note-books, and
the small camp-stools, again started away together. This last ‘again’
was getting to be accepted quite as a matter of course. Everybody knew
what it meant. They always invited the rest of the company to go
with them, and were especially urgent, this morning, that Mae should
accompany them.
“Why, with mamma in her room you will be lonely,” suggested Edith, “and
you can’t go out by yourself.”
Mae winced inwardly at this, but replied pleasantly: “I have letters to
write also, and I’m not in the mood to-day for pictures, and the cold,
chilling galleries filled with the damp breath of the ages.”
So Edith and Albert, nothing loth, having discharged their duty, started
off. These two have as yet appeared only in the background, and may
have assumed a half-priggish air in opposition and contrast to Mae.
They really, however, were very interesting young people. Albert with
a strong desire in his heart--or was it in his head?--to aid the world,
and Edith with a clear self-possession and New England shrewdness that
helped and pleased him. Their travels were enriching them both. Edith
was trying to draw the soul from all the great pictures and some of the
lesser ones, and Albert was waking, through her influence, to the world
of art. This morning they were on their way to the Transfiguration to
study the scornful sister. They were taking the picture bit by bit,
color by color, face by face. There are advantages in this analytical
study, yet there is a chance of losing the spirit of the whole. So Mae
thought and said: “I know that sister now, Edith, better than you ever
will.” This was while she was looping up her friend’s dress here,
and pulling out a fold there, in that destructive way girls have of
beautifying each other. “See here!”
And down sank Miss Mae on her knees, with her lips curved, and her hands
stretched out imploringly, half-mockingly. No need of words to say:
“Save my brother, behold him. Ah, you cannot do it, your power is boast.
Yet, save him, pray.”
“A little more yellow in my hair, some pearls and a pink gown, and you
might have the sister to study in a living model, Edith,” laughed Mae,
arising.
Edith and Albert were both struck by Mae’s dramatic force, and they
talked of her as they drove to the Vatican. “I wish I understood her
better,” said Edith. “I cannot feel as if travel were doing her good.
She is changing so; she was always odd, but then she was always happy.
Now she has her moods, and there is a look in her eye I am afraid of. It
is almost savage. You would think the beauty in Rome would delight her
nature, for she craves beauty and poetry in everything. I don’t believe
the theatre is good for her. Albert, suppose we give up our tickets for
Thursday night.”
“But you want particularly to see that play, Edith.”
“I can easily give it up for Mae’s sake. It would be cruel to go without
her, and I think excitement is bad for her.”
“You are very generous, Edith, and right, too, I dare say. I wish my
little sister could see pleasure and duty through your steadier, clearer
eyes.”
Then the steady, clear eyes dropped suddenly, and the two forgot all
about Mae, and rolled contentedly off, behind the limping Italian
horse. And the red-cheeked vetturino with the flower in his button-hole,
whistled a love-song, and thought of his Piametta, I suppose.
Meantime, Mae, left to herself, grew penitent and reckless by turns,
blushed alternately with shame and with quick pulse-beats, as she
remembered Norman Mann’s face, or the officer’s smile. She wondered
where he lived, and whether she would see him soon again. Poor child!
She was really innocent, and only dimly surmised how he would haunt her
hereafter. Would he look well in citizen’s clothes? How would Norman
Mann seem in his uniform? She wished she had a jacket cut like his. And
so on in an indolent way. But penitence was getting the better of her,
and after vainly trying to read or write, she settled herself down for
a cry. To think that she, Mae Madden, could have acted so absurdly. She
never would forgive herself, never. Then she cried some more, a good
deal more.
About four in the afternoon a very bright sunbeam peeped through her
closed blinds, and she brushed away her tears, and peace came back to
her small heart, and she felt like a New England valley after a shower,
very fresh and clean, and goodly,--just a trifle subdued, however.
She would go to church. She had heard that there was lovely music at
vespers, in the little church at the foot of Capo le Case. St. Andrea
delle Frate, was it? It wasn’t very far away. She could say her prayers
and repent entirely and wholly. So she dressed rapidly, singing the
familiar old Te Deum joyously all the while, and off she started.
The air was cool and clear and delicious and the street-scenes were
pretty. Mae took in everything before her as she left the house, from
the Barberini fountain to the groups of models at the corner of the
Square and the Via Felice; but she did not see, at some distance
behind her, on the opposite side of the street, the sudden start of a
motionless figure as she left the house, or know that it straightened
itself and moved along as she did, turning on to the pretty Via Sistina,
so down the hill at Capo le Case, to the church below.
She was early for vespers, and there was only the music singing in her
own happy little heart as she entered the quiet place. The contrast
between the spot, with its shrines and symbols and aids to faith, and
all that she had associated with religion, conspired to separate her
from herself and her past, and left her a bit of breathing, worshiping
life, praising the great Giver of Life. She fell on her knees in an
exalted, jubilate spirit. She was more like a Praise-the-Lord psalm of
David than like a young girl of the nineteenth century.
And yet close behind her, a little to the left, was Bero on his knees
too, at his pater nosters.
By and by the music began. It was music beyond description; those
wonderful male voices, the chorus of young boys, and then suddenly, the
organ and some one wild falsetto carrying the great Latin soul-laden
words up higher.
All this while Mae’s head was bent low and her heart was a-praying.
All this while Bero was on his knees also, but his eyes were on Mae.
The music ceased; the prayers were ended. Mae heard indistinctly the
sweep of trailing skirts, the sound of footsteps on the marble floor,
the noise of voices as the people went away, but still she did not move.
The selah pause had come after the psalm.
When she did rise, and turn, and start to go, her eyes fell on the
kneeling form. She tried to pass quickly without recognition, but he
reached out his hand.
“This is a church,” said Mae; “my prayers are sacred; do not disturb
me.”
He held his rosary toward her, with the cross at the end tightly clasped
in his hand. “My prayers are here, too,” he said. “Oh, Signorina, give
me one little prayer, one of your little prayers.”
He knelt before her in the quiet, dim, half light, his hands clasped,
and an intense earnestness in his easily moved Italian soul, that
floated up to his face. It looked like beautiful penitence and faith
to Mae. Here was a soul in sympathy with hers, one which met her
harmoniously in every mood, slid into her dreams and wild wishes,
sparkled with her enjoyment, and now knelt as she knelt, and asked for
one of her prayers.
She stood a minute irresolute. Then she smiled down on him a full, rich
smile, and said in English: “God bless you,” The next moment she was
gone.
Bero made no movement to follow her, but remained quietly on his knees,
his head bowed low.
* * * * *
“I looked in at St. Andrea’s, at vespers,” said that dear, bungling
fellow, Eric, at dinner that night, “and saw you Mae, but you were so
busy with your prayers I came away.” There was a pause, and Mae knew
that people looked at her.
“Yes, I was there; the music was wonderful.”
“Mae,” asked Mrs. Jerrold, “Do you have to go to a Roman Catholic Church
to say your prayers?” For Mrs. Jerrold was a Puritan of the Puritans,
and had breathed in the shorter catechism and the doctrine of election
with the mountain air and sea-salt of her childhood. Possibly the two
former had had as much to do as the latter with her angularity and
severe strength.
“Indeed,” cried Mae, impulsively, “I wish I could always enter a church
to say my prayers. There is so much to help one there.”
“Is there any danger of your becoming a Romanist?” enquired Mrs.
Jerrold, pushing the matter further.
“I wish there were a chance of my becoming anything half as good, but I
am afraid there isn’t. Still, I turn with an occasional loyal heart-beat
to the great Mother Church, that the rest of you have all run away
from.” “Yes, you have,” Mae shook her head decidedly at Edith. “She may
be a cruel mother. I know you all think she’s like the old woman
who lived in a shoe, and that she whips her children and sends them
supperless to bed, and gives them a stone for bread, but she’s the
mother of all of us, notwithstanding.”
“What a dreadful mixture of Mother Goose and Holy Bible,” exclaimed
Eric, laughingly, while Mae cooled off, and Mrs. Jerrold stared
amazedly, wondering how to take this tirade. She concluded at last that
it would be better to let it pass as one of Mae’s extravagances, so she
ended the conversation by saying: “I hope, Eric, you will wait for your
sister, if you see her alone, at church. It is not the thing for her to
go by herself.”
“No,” added Albert, “we shall have to buy a chain for you soon.”
“If you do,” said Mae quietly, “I’ll slip it.” And not another prayer
did she say that night.