Del Ferice kept his word and arranged matters for Orsino with a speed
and skill which excited the latter's admiration. The affair was not
indeed very complicated though it involved a deed of sale, the transfer
of a mortgage and a deed of partnership between Orsino Saracinesca and
Andrea Contini, architect, under the style "Andrea Contini and Company,"
besides a contract between this firm of the one party and the bank in
which Del Ferice was a director, of the other, the partners agreeing to
continue the building of the half-finished house, and the bank binding
itself to advance small sums up to a certain amount for current expenses
of material and workmen's wages. Orsino signed everything required of
him after reading the documents, and Andrea Contini followed his
example.
The architect was a tall man with bright brown eyes, a dark and somewhat
ragged beard, close cropped hair, a prominent, bony forehead and large,
coarsely shaped, thin ears oddly set upon his head. He habitually wore a
dark overcoat, of which the collar was generally turned up on one side
and not on the other. Judging from the appearance of his strong shoes he
had always been walking a long distance over bad roads, and when it had
rained within the week his trousers were generally bespattered with mud
to a considerable height above the heel. He habitually carried an
extinguished cigar between his teeth of which he chewed the thin black
end uneasily. Orsino fancied that he might be about eight and twenty
years old, and was not altogether displeased with his appearance. He was
not at all like the majority of his kind, who, in Rome at least, usually
affect a scrupulous dandyism of attire and an uncommon refinement of
manner. Whatever Contini's faults might prove to be, Orsino did not
believe that they would turn out to be those of idleness or vanity. How
far he was right in his judgment will appear before long, but he
conceived his partner to be gifted, frank, enthusiastic and careless of
outward forms.
As for the architect himself, he surveyed Orsino with a sort of
sympathetic curiosity which the latter would have thought unpleasantly
familiar if he had understood it. Contini had never spoken before with
any more exalted personage than Del Ferice, and he studied the young
aristocrat as though he were a being from another world. He hesitated
some time as to the proper mode of addressing him and at last decided to
call him "Signor Principe." Orsino seemed quite satisfied with this, and
the architect was inwardly pleased when the young man said "Signor
Contini" instead of Contini alone. It was quite clear that Del Ferice
had already acquainted him with all the details of the situation, for he
seemed to understand all the documents at a glance, picking out and
examining the important clauses with unfailing acuteness, and pointing
with his finger to the place where Orsino was to sign his name.
At the end of the interview Orsino shook hands with Del Ferice and
thanked him warmly for his kindness, after which, he and his partner
went out together. They stood side by side upon the pavement for a few
seconds, each wondering what the other was going to say.
"Perhaps we had better go and look at the house, Signor Principe,"
observed Contini, in the midst of an ineffectual effort to light the
stump of his cigar.
"I think so, too," answered Orsino, realising that since he had acquired
the property it would be as well to know how it looked. "You see I have
trusted my adviser entirely in the matter, and I am ashamed to say I do
not know where the house is."
Andrea Contini looked at him curiously.
"This is the first time that you have had anything to do with business
of this kind, Signor Principe," he observed. "You have fallen into good
hands."
"Yours?" inquired Orsino, a little stiffly.
"No. I mean that Count Del Ferice is a good adviser in this matter."
"I hope so."
"I am sure of it," said Contini with conviction. "It would be a great
surprise to me if we failed to make a handsome profit by this contract."
"There is luck and ill-luck in everything," answered Orsino, signalling
to a passing cab.
The two men exchanged few words as they drove up to the new quarter in
the direction indicated to the driver by Contini. The cab entered a sort
of broad lane, the sketch of a future street, rough with the unrolled
metalling of broken stones, the space set apart for the pavement being
an uneven path of trodden brown earth. Here and there tall detached
houses rose out of the wilderness, mostly covered by scaffoldings and
swarming with workmen, but hideous where so far finished as to be
visible in all the isolation of their six-storied nakedness. A strong
smell of lime, wet earth and damp masonry was blown into Orsino's
nostrils by the scirocco wind. Contini stopped the cab before an
unpromising and deserted erection of poles, boards and tattered
matting.
"This is our house," he said, getting out and immediately making another
attempt to light his cigar.
"May I offer you a cigarette?" asked Orsino, holding out his case.
Contini touched his hat, bowed a little awkwardly and took one of the
cigarettes, which he immediately transferred to his coat pocket.
"If you will allow me I will smoke it by and by," he said. "I have not
finished my cigar."
Orsino stood on the slippery ground beside the stones and contemplated
his purchase. All at once his heart sank and he felt a profound disgust
for everything within the range of his vision. He was suddenly aware of
his own total and hopeless ignorance of everything connected with
building, theoretical or practical. The sight of the stiff, angular
scaffoldings, draped with torn straw mattings that flapped fantastically
in the south-east wind, the apparent absence of anything like a real
house behind them, the blades of grass sprouting abundantly about the
foot of each pole and covering the heaps of brown pozzolana earth
prepared for making mortar, even the detail of a broken wooden hod
before the boarded entrance--all these things contributed at once to
increase his dismay and to fill him with a bitter sense of inevitable
failure. He found nothing to say, as he stood with his hands in his
pockets staring at the general desolation, but he understood for the
first time why women cry for disappointment. And moreover, this
desolation was his own peculiar property, by deed of purchase, and he
could not get rid of it.
Meanwhile Andrea Contini stood beside him, examining the scaffoldings
with his bright brown eyes, in no way disconcerted by the prospect.
"Shall we go in?" he asked at last.
"Do unfinished houses always look like this?" inquired Orsino, in a
hopeless tone, without noticing his companion's proposition.
"Not always," answered Contini cheerfully. "It depends upon the amount
of work that has been done, and upon other things. Sometimes the
foundations sink and the buildings collapse."
"Are you sure nothing of the kind has happened here?" asked Orsino with
increasing anxiety.
"I have been several times to look at it since the baker died and I have
not noticed any cracks yet," answered the architect, whose coolness
seemed almost exasperating.
"I suppose you understand these things, Signor Contini?"
Contini laughed, and felt in his pockets for a crumpled paper box of
wax-lights.
"It is my profession," he answered. "And then, I built this house from
the foundations. If you will come in, Signor Principe, I will show you
how solidly the work is done."
He took a key from his pocket and thrust it into a hole in the boarding,
which latter proved to be a rough door and opened noisily upon rusty
hinges. Orsino followed him in silence. To the young man's inexperienced
eye the interior of the building was even more depressing than the
outside. It smelt like a vault, and a dim grey light entered the square
apertures from the curtained scaffoldings without, just sufficient to
help one to find a way through the heaps of rubbish that covered the
unpaved floors. Contini explained rapidly and concisely the arrangement
of the rooms, calling one cave familiarly a dining-room and another a
"conjugal bedroom," as he expressed it, and expatiating upon the
facilities of communication which he himself had carefully planned.
Orsino listened in silence and followed his guide patiently from place
to place, in and out of dark passages and up flights of stairs as yet
unguarded by any rail, until they emerged upon a sort of flat terrace
intersected by low walls, which was indeed another floor and above which
another story and a garret were yet to be built to complete the house.
Orsino looked gloomily about him, lighted a cigarette and sat down upon
a bit of masonry.
"To me, it looks very like failure," he remarked. "But I suppose there
is something in it."
"It will not look like failure next month," said Contini carelessly.
"Another story is soon built, and then the attic, and then, if you like,
a Gothic roof and a turret at one corner. That always attracts buyers
first and respectable lodgers afterwards."
"Let us have a turret, by all means," answered Orsino, as though his
tailor had proposed to put an extra button on the cuff of his coat. "But
how in the world are you going to begin? Everything looks to me as
though it were falling to pieces."
"Leave all that to me, Signor Principe. We will begin to-morrow. I have
a good overseer and there are plenty of workmen to be had. We have
material for a week at least, and paid for, excepting a few cartloads of
lime. Come again in ten days and you will see something worth looking
at."
"In ten days? And what am I to do in the meantime?" asked Orsino, who
fancied that he had found an occupation.
Andrea Contini looked at him in some surprise, not understanding in the
least what he meant.
"I mean, am I to have nothing to do with the work?" asked Orsino.
"Oh--as far as that goes, you will come every day, Signor Principe, if
it amuses you, though as you are not a practical architect, your
assistance is not needed until questions of taste have to be considered,
such as the Gothic roof for instance. But there are the accounts to be
kept, of course, and there is the business with the bank from week to
week, office work of various kinds. That becomes naturally your
department, as the practical superintendence of the building is mine,
but you will of course leave it to the steward of the Signor Principe di
Sant' Ilario, who is a man of affairs."
"I will do nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Orsino. "I will do it myself.
I will learn how it is done. I want occupation."
"What an extraordinary wish!" Andrea Contini opened his eyes in real
astonishment.
"Is it? You work. Why should not I?"
"I must, and you need not, Signor Principe," observed the architect.
"But if you insist, then you had better get a clerk to explain the
details to you at first."
"Do you not understand them? Can you not teach me?" asked Orsino,
displeased with the idea of employing a third person.
"Oh yes--I have been a clerk myself. I should be too much honoured
but--the fact is, my spare time--"
He hesitated and seemed reluctant to explain.
"What do you do with your spare time?" asked Orsino, suspecting some
love affair.
"The fact is--I play a second violin at one of the theatres--and I give
lessons on the mandolin, and sometimes I do copying work for my uncle
who is a clerk in the Treasury. You see, he is old, and his eyes are not
as good as they were."
Orsino began to think that his partner was a very odd person. He could
not help smiling at the enumeration of his architect's secondary
occupations.
"You are very fond of music, then?" he asked.
"Eh--yes--as one can be, without talent--a little by necessity. To be an
architect one must have houses to build. You see the baker died
unexpectedly. One must live somehow."
"And could you not--how shall I say? Would you not be willing to give me
lessons in book-keeping instead of teaching some one else to play the
mandolin?"
"You would not care to learn the mandolin yourself, Signor Principe? It
is a very pretty instrument, especially for country parties, as well as
for serenading."
Orsino laughed. He did not see himself in the character of a
mandolinist.
"I have not the slightest ear for music," he answered. "I would much
rather learn something about business."
"It is less amusing," said Andrea Contini regretfully.
"But I am at your service. I will come to the office when work is over
and we will do the accounts together. You will learn in that way very
quickly."
"Thank you. I suppose we must have an office. It is necessary, is it
not?"
"Indispensable--a room, a garret--anything. A habitation, a legal
domicile, so to say."
"Where do you live, Signor Contini? Would not your lodging do?"
"I am afraid not, Signor Principe. At least not for the present. I am
not very well lodged and the stairs are badly lighted."
"Why not here, then?" asked Orsino, suddenly growing desperately
practical, for he felt unaccountably reluctant to hire an office in the
city.
"We should pay no rent," said Contini. "It is an idea. But the walls are
dry downstairs, and we only need a pavement, and plastering, and doors
and windows, and papering and some furniture to make one of the rooms
quite habitable. It is an idea, undoubtedly. Besides, it would give the
house an air of being inhabited, which is valuable."
"How long will all that take? A month or two?"
"About a week. It will be a little fresh, but if you are not rheumatic,
Signor Principe, we can try it."
"I am not rheumatic," laughed Orsino, who was pleased with the idea of
having his office on the spot, and apparently in the midst of a
wilderness. "And I suppose you really do understand architecture, Signor
Contini, though you do play the fiddle."
In this exceedingly sketchy way was the firm of Andrea Contini and
Company established and lodged, being at the time in a very shadowy
state, theoretically and practically, though it was destined to play a
more prominent part in affairs than either of the young partners
anticipated. Orsino discovered before long that his partner was a man of
skill and energy, and his spirits rose by degrees as the work began to
advance. Contini was restless, untiring and gifted, such a character as
Orsino had not yet met in his limited experience of the world. The man
seemed to understand his business to the smallest details and could show
the workmen how to mix mortar in the right proportions, or how to
strengthen a scaffolding at the weak point much better than the overseer
or the master builder. At the books he seemed to be infallible, and he
possessed, moreover, such a power of stating things clearly and neatly
that Orsino actually learnt from him in a few weeks what he would have
needed six months to learn anywhere else. As soon as the first dread of
failure wore off, Orsino discovered that he was happier than he had ever
been in the course of his life before. What he did was not, indeed, of
much use in the progress of the office work and rather hindered than
helped Contini, who was obliged to do everything slowly and sometimes
twice over in order to make his pupil understand; but Orsino had a clear
and practical mind, and did not forget what he had learned once. An odd
sort of friendship sprang up between the two men, who under ordinary
circumstances would never have met, or known each other by sight. The
one had expected to find in his partner an overbearing, ignorant
patrician; the other had supposed that his companion would turn out a
vulgar, sordid, half-educated builder. Both were equally surprised when
each discovered the truth about the other.
Though Orsino was reticent by nature, he took no especial pains to
conceal his goings and comings, but as his occupation took him out of
the ordinary beat followed by his idle friends, it was a long time
before any of them discovered that he was engaged in practical business.
In his own home he was not questioned, and he said nothing. The
Saracinesca were considered eccentric, but no one interfered with them
nor ventured to offer them suggestions. If they chose to allow their
heir absolute liberty of action, merely because he had passed his
twenty-first birthday, it was their own concern, and his ruin would be
upon their own heads. No one cared to risk a savage retort from the aged
prince, or a cutting answer from Sant' Ilario for the questionable
satisfaction of telling either that Orsino was going to the bad. The
only person who really knew what Orsino was about, and who could have
claimed the right to speak to his family of his doings was San Giacinto,
and he held his peace, having plenty of important affairs of his own to
occupy him and being blessed with an especial gift for leaving other
people to themselves.
Sant' Ilario never spied upon his son, as many of his contemporaries
would have done in his place. He preferred to trust him to his own
devices so long as these led to no great mischief. He saw that Orsino
was less restless than formerly, that he was less at the club, and that
he was stirring earlier in the morning than had been his wont, and he
was well satisfied.
It was not to be expected, however, that Orsino should take Maria
Consuelo literally at her word, and cease from visiting her all at once.
If not really in love with her, he was at least so much interested in
her that he sorely missed the daily half hour or more which he had been
used to spend in her society.
Three several times he went to her hotel at the accustomed hour, and
each time he was told by the porter that she was at home; but on each
occasion, also, when he sent up his card, the hotel servant returned
with a message from the maid to the effect that Madame d'Aranjuez was
tired and did not receive. Orsino's pride rebelled equally against
making a further attempt and against writing a letter requesting an
explanation. Once only, when he was walking alone she passed him in a
carriage, and she acknowledged his bow quietly and naturally, as though
nothing had happened. He fancied she was paler than usual, and that
there were shadows under her eyes which he had not formerly noticed.
Possibly, he thought, she was really not in good health, and the excuses
made through her maid were not wholly invented. He was conscious that
his heart beat a little faster as he watched the back of the brougham
disappearing in the distance, but he did not feel an irresistible
longing to make another and more serious attempt to see her. He tried to
analyse his own sensations, and it seemed to him that he rather dreaded
a meeting than desired it, and that he felt a certain humiliation for
which he could not account. In the midst of his analysis, his cigarette
went out and he sighed. He was startled by such an expression of
feeling, and tried to remember whether he had ever sighed before in his
life, but if he had, he could not recall the circumstances. He tried to
console himself with the absurd supposition that he was sleepy and that
the long-drawn breath had been only a suppressed yawn. Then he walked
on, gazing before him into the purple haze that filled the deep street
just as the sun was setting, and a vague sadness and longing touched him
which had no place in his catalogue of permissible emotions and which
were as far removed from the cold cynicism which he admired in others
and affected in himself as they were beyond the sphere of his analysis.
There is an age, not always to be fixed exactly, at which the really
masculine nature craves the society of womankind, in one shape or
another, as a necessity of existence, and by the society of womankind no
one means merely the daily and hourly social intercourse which consists
in exchanging the same set of remarks half a dozen times a day with as
many beings of gentle sex who, to the careless eye of ordinary man,
differ from each other in dress rather than in face or thought. There
are eminently manly men, that is to say men fearless, strong, honourable
and active, to whom the common five o'clock tea presents as much
distraction and offers as much womanly sympathy as they need; who choose
their intimate friends among men, rather than among women, and who die
at an advanced age without ever having been more than comfortably in
love--and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The masculine man may be as
brave, as strong and as scrupulously just in all his dealings, but on
the other hand he may be weak, cowardly and a cheat, and he is apt to
inherit the portion of sinners, whatever his moral characteristics may
be, good or bad.
Orsino was certainly not unmanly, but he was also eminently masculine
and he began to suffer from the loss of Maria Consuelo's conversation in
a way that surprised himself. His acquaintance with her, to give it a
mild name, had been the first of the kind which he had enjoyed, and it
contrasted too strongly with the crude experiences of his untried youth
not to be highly valued by him and deeply regretted. He might pretend to
laugh at it, and repeat to himself that his Egeria had been but a very
superficial person, fervent in the reading of the daily novel and
possibly not even worldly wise; he did not miss her any the less for
that. A little sympathy and much patience in listening will go far to
make a woman of small gifts indispensable even to a man of superior
talent, especially when he thinks himself misunderstood in his ordinary
surroundings. The sympathy passes for intelligence and the patience for
assent and encouragement--a touch of the hand, and there is friendship,
a tear, a sigh, and devotion stands upon the stage, bearing in her arms
an infant love who learns to walk his part at the first suspicion of a
kiss.
Orsino did not imagine that he had exhausted the world's capabilities of
happiness. The age of Byronism, as it used to be called, is over.
Possibly tragedies are more real and frequent in our day than when the
century was young; at all events those which take place seem to draw a
new element of horror from those undefinable, mechanical, prosaic,
psuedo-scientific conditions which make our lives so different from
those of our fathers. Everything is terribly sudden nowadays, and
alarmingly quick. Lovers make love across Europe by telegraph, and
poetic justice arrives in less than forty-eight hours by the Oriental
Express. Divorce is our weapon of precision, and every pack of cards at
the gaming table can distil a poison more destructive than that of the
Borgia. The unities of time and place are preserved by wire and rail in
a way which would have delighted the hearts of the old French tragics.
Perhaps men seek dramatic situations in their own lives less readily
since they have found out means of making the concluding act more swift,
sudden and inevitable. At all events we all like tragedy less and comedy
more than our fathers did, which, I think, shows that we are sadder and
possibly wiser men than they.
However this may be, Orsino was no more inclined to fancy himself
unhappy than any of his familiar companions, though he was quite willing
to believe that he understood most of life's problems, and especially
the heart of woman. He continued to go into the world, for it was new to
him and if he did not find exactly the sort of sympathy he secretly
craved, he found at least a great deal of consideration, some flattery
and a certain amount of amusement. But when he was not actually being
amused, or really engaged in the work which he had undertaken with so
much enthusiasm, he felt lonely and missed Maria Consuelo more than
ever. By this time she had taken a position in society from which there
could be no drawing back, and he gave up for ever the hope of seeing her
in his own circle. She seemed to avoid even the grey houses where they
might have met on neutral ground, and Orsino saw that his only chance of
finding her in the world lay in going frequently and openly to Del
Ferice's house. He had called on Donna Tullia after the dinner, of
course, but he was not prepared to do more, and Del Ferice did not seem
to expect it.
Three or four weeks after he had entered into partnership with Andrea
Contini, Orsino found himself alone with his mother in the evening.
Corona was seated near the fire in her favourite boudoir, with a book in
her hand, and Orsino stood warming himself on one side of the
chimney-piece, staring into the flames and occasionally glancing at his
mother's calm, dark face. He was debating whether he should stay at home
or not.
Corona became conscious that he looked at her from time to time and
dropped her novel upon her knee.
"Are you going out, Orsino?" she asked.
"I hardly know," he answered. "There is nothing particular to do, and it
is too late for the theatre."
"Then stay with me. Let us talk." She looked at him affectionately and
pointed to a low chair near her.
He drew it up until he could see her face as she spoke, and then sat
down.
"What shall we talk about, mother?" he asked, with a smile.
"About yourself, if you like, my dear. That is, if you have anything
that you know I would like to hear. I am not curious, am I, Orsino? I
never ask you questions about yourself."
"No, indeed. You never tease me with questions--nor does my father
either, for that matter. Would you really like to know what I am doing?"
"If you will tell me."
"I am building a house," said Orsino, looking at her to see the effect
of the announcement.
"A house?" repeated Corona in surprise. "Where? Does your father know
about it?"
"He said he did not care what I did." Orsino spoke rather bitterly.
"That does not sound like him, my dear. Tell me all about it. Have you
quarrelled with him, or had words together?"
Orsino told his story quickly, concisely and with a frankness he would
perhaps not have shown to any one else in the world, for he did not even
conceal his connection with Del Ferice. Corona listened intently, and
her deep eyes told him plainly enough that she was interested. On his
part he found an unexpected pleasure in telling her the tale, and he
wondered why it had never struck him that his mother might sympathise
with his plans and aspirations. When he had finished, he waited for her
first word almost as anxiously as he would have waited for an expression
of opinion from Maria Consuelo.
Corona did not speak at once. She looked into his eyes, smiled, patted
his lean brown hand lovingly and smiled again before she spoke.
"I like it," she said at last. "I like you to be independent and
determined. You might perhaps have chosen a better man than Del Ferice
for your adviser. He did something once--well, never mind! It was long
ago and it did us no harm."
"What did he do, mother? I know my father wounded him in a duel before
you were married--"
"It was not that. I would rather not tell you about it--it can do no
good, and after all, it has nothing to do with the present affair. He
would not be so foolish as to do you an injury now. I know him very
well. He is far too clever for that."
"He is certainly clever," said Orsino. He knew that it would be quite
useless to question his mother further after what she had said. "I am
glad that you do not think I have made a mistake in going into this
business."
"No. I do not think you have made a mistake, and I do not believe that
your father will think so either when he knows all about it."
"He need not have been so icily discouraging," observed Orsino.
"He is a man, my dear, and I am a woman. That is the difference. Was San
Giacinto more encouraging than he? No. They think alike, and San
Giacinto has an immense experience besides. And yet they are both wrong.
You may succeed, or you may fail--I hope you will succeed--but I do not
care much for the result. It is the principle I like, the idea, the
independence of the thing. As I grow old, I think more than I used to do
when I was young."
"How can you talk of growing old!" exclaimed Orsino indignantly.
"I think more," said Corona again, not heeding him. "One of my thoughts
is that our old restricted life was a mistake for us, and that to keep
it up would be a sin for you. The world used to stand still in those
days, and we stood at the head of it, or thought we did. But it is
moving now and you must move with it or you will not only have to give
up your place, but you will be left behind altogether."
"I had no idea that you were so modern, dearest mother," laughed Orsino.
He felt suddenly very happy and in the best of humours with himself.
"Modern--no, I do not think that either your father or I could ever be
that. If you had lived our lives you would see how impossible it is. The
most I can hope to do is to understand you and your brothers as you grow
up to be men. But I hate interference and I hate curiosity--the one
breeds opposition and the other dishonesty--and if the other boys turn
out to be as reticent as you, Orsino, I shall not always know when they
want me. You do not realise how much you have been away from me since
you were a boy, nor how silent you have grown when you are at home."
"Am I, mother? I never meant to be."
"I know it, dear, and I do not want you to be always confiding in me. It
is not a good thing for a young man. You are strong and the more you
rely upon yourself, the stronger you will grow. But when you want
sympathy, if you ever do, remember that I have my whole heart full of it
for you. For that, at least, come to me. No one can give you what I can
give you, dear son."
Orsino was touched and pressed her hand, kissing it more than once. He
did not know whether in her last words she had meant any allusion to
Maria Consuelo, or whether, indeed, she had been aware of his intimacy
with the latter. But he did not ask the question of her nor of himself.
For the moment he felt that a want in his nature had been satisfied, and
he wondered again why he had never thought of confiding in his mother.
They talked of his plans until it was late, and from that time they were
more often together than before, each growing daily more proud of the
other, though perhaps Orsino had better reasons for his pride than
Corona could have found, for the love of mother for son is more
comprehensive and not less blind than the passion of woman for man.