The Principessa di Santafede was a lady of gravely gracious manners,
iron prejudices and active piety, and she entertained a profound
belief in the necessity of her own class to the well-being of the
world. So far as she was concerned secular history contained but one
record worthy of study and imitation, the record of the noble houses
of Rome. Each tradition and regulation connected with these was not
only a rubric but a dogma. To believe and act thereupon was to find
social salvation; all who rejected these articles of faith perish from
her consciousness; their names were erased from her "libro d'oro,"
and they ceased to be. No taint of novelty had cast its shadow over
her education. Except that the history books were thicker and the
spelling modernized, the teaching she received in the convent along
with all the other noble damsels in Rome was the same as that which
had been bestowed on her ancestresses for generations past. It had
proved entirely sufficient for those eminent ladies, and neither
parents nor instructors could see any reason for changing a detail of
it. There would be Roman nobles so long as the world lasted; their
vast establishments would move ponderously and surely as they had
always moved; and a girl brought from her convent to be placed at the
head of such an establishment had but to leave its conduct to the
responsible persons, the major-domos, and stewards, and housekeepers,
descended from many generations of officials who had served the same
"Eccellentissima Casa" in the same capacities. She had but to watch and
copy her seniors in order to fulfill her obligations in society, in
matrimony, in maternity, to the complete satisfaction of all concerned.
Life was quite simple if only people did their duty.
Political crises would occur, of course; the riots and revolutions
of 1848, for instance, had been most disturbing. But they had only
strengthened the beliefs of right-thinking persons, for, behold, they
had passed by like a wave of the sea breaking against the rocks,
leaving everything as it was before and as it would be "in sæcula
sæculorum" so far as Rome was concerned--and Rome was the world.
Prince Santafede had died when their only son was quite a child, and
the responsibilities thus devolving on her sufficiently accounted
for his widow's grave outlook on life. It was, however, a peaceful
and happy life, clouded by few real anxieties, since Onorato had now
reached the age of eighteen without giving any serious trouble. He was
a cheerful, warm-hearted boy, with no more fixed aversion to study
than the remainder of his contemporaries. Accompanied by his tutor,
a learned ecclesiastic, he had attended the proper lectures at the
university, and, though his education included only the classics and
humanities, it had given him all that was then required of a gentleman,
fluent and elegant Latin, a working acquaintance with his own and
foreign literatures, charming manners, and a fitting sense of what
was due to himself and others. If there was one cloud in his mother's
large sky, it was caused by the fact that he did not take her views on
the sacredness of family traditions in one or two minor directions,
notably that of the expenditure on the stables. Onorato had no other
extravagances, but he insisted on riding and driving magnificent
imported horses, declaring that it was a public duty to set a higher
standard than the prevailing one in such matters. The Princess and
Onorato's lamented father had been perfectly contented with their six
pairs of coal-black horses, bred on their own lands with hundreds of
others destined to be sold all over Italy and Austria. The animals
had been driven and cared for by coachmen and grooms also born on the
estates; and the Princess could not imagine anything more splendid
and appropriate than the high calèche on C. springs in which she took
her daily airing; the deep, hearse-like berline swung on leather
bands, which carried her to parties, seemed the perfection of comfort
and safety; and she felt something like reverence for the yellow
stage coach, with blazoned panels and glass sides, with gold-fringed
hammercloth and tasseled straps to which the three dazzlingly arrayed
footmen hung behind. It was only brought out on grand occasions, for
audiences with the Pope or Ambassadors' receptions, and the Princess
felt as if her skies were falling when her son, a "Principe del Solio"
(supporter of the throne), climbing into it in all his magnificence
of doublet and ruff, gold chain and sword, to go and attend the Holy
Father on Easter morning, called it a "lumbering old pumpkin," and
declared that if he had his way he would make a bonfire of it in the
courtyard. His revolutionary ideas had not only demonstrated themselves
by importing foreign horses, but by filling the coachhouses with French
carriages and the stables with English grooms, barbarians who, while
fulfilling their other duties faithfully enough, grumbled at having to
go to church, and thus deeply scandalized the rest of the well-drilled
household.
The Princess's brother, Cardinal Cestaldini, Professor Bianchi's
learned patron and friend, tried to console his sister for her son's
equine irregularities by pointing out that they were not so extravagant
as they appeared, since Onorato was bent on improving the Roman breed
and thus adding considerable value to the Santafede horse farms; also
that a young man might spend his money on worse things than horses.
This was at all events an innocent taste, and, seeing that Onorato
had no inclination for deeply serious pursuits, and was too young to
get married--well, his mother must be patient and not estrange him
by any undue severity. Paolo Cestaldini's own happy lot inspired him
with much indulgence for those less blessed. He felt that few were as
fortunate as himself, delivered from worldly distractions at the start
by what he considered the undeserved grace of a religious vocation, and
then provided with the most elevating and beneficent occupation for
his leisure. In the delights of Art and Archæology, subjects which
he could discuss with the most learned, he found an inexhaustible
source of interest and recreation. Incapable of an ungenerous or
insincere thought, he was merciful and gentle in his judgment of
others. Religion, which had built up round his sister a wall of defense
against the temptations which assault those in the world, had turned
the other side of its golden shield to him, and mellowed and enriched
the man's ascetic nature and broadened his mind while it refined his
appreciations. To the married woman it was a fortress, to the lonely
prelate, a garden.
The Princess listened rather despondently to her brother's encouraging
exhortations. They did not alter her conviction that Onorato was on the
wrong road, and she resolved to pray more earnestly (good soul, that
would hardly have been possible) and to apply herself with more fervor
to her many works of charity in order to obtain his reformation. Full
of these thoughts, she stopped at the church of San Severino on her way
home, dismissed her carriage, since the Palazzo Santafede was only a
few hundred yards away, and found a good deal of comfort in saying her
prayers in the silent, dusky church.
Emerging half-an-hour later, she saw just before her in the street, a
servant woman leading a little girl by the hand. The airy poise of the
little figure, the light step and quick turn of the small head, took
the Princess's fancy. Above all, the shining golden braids hanging down
to the child's waist aroused her admiration, for to be fair is to
be loved, in dark Romagna. Mariuccia and Giannella, unconscious that
their unapproachably illustrious landlady was following them, passed up
the street, turned into the piazza, and disappeared under the arched
entrance of the palace. By the time the Princess reached it, they were
lost to view round the turn of the colonnade. She paused to ask the
porter, who was grounding his tasseled staff and sweeping the pavement
with his hat, if he could tell her who the child was. Did she belong to
anyone in the palazzo?
The Excellency was informed that the woman conducting her was Professor
Bianchi's servant, and that the little girl had been brought by a
contadina from the country a few days before. Nothing more was known.
The "donna" rarely spoke to anyone. Did the Excellency wish inquiries
to be made?
Certainly not, the Princess replied, Professor Bianchi's family was
his private affair. She discouraged all gossip about her tenants.
Ferretti, the mæstro di casa, was responsible for them and she never
interfered with his wise and careful management. Still, he had told
her, when letting the rooms, that the Professor was a bachelor; and
Bianchi was sufficiently distinguished in his own learned circle for
his rather crabbed characteristics to have become more or less known
to the public. The Princess, as she mounted the broad marble stairs to
her own apartment, wondered whether the child were some relation of
his, and felt a certain pity for the bright little thing if she were
really condemned to live with the parsimonious man of science and his
grim-looking servant.
She was soon to know more about Giannella. Mariuccia was just now
terribly puzzled by a new responsibility which immediately faced her.
At seven years of age children must begin to go to school, and how was
this to be managed for Giannella? There were free schools all over
the city, kept by the nuns for the children of the poor. The little
ones were collected from their homes in the morning by trusty persons
who called for them and brought them back in the evening, receiving
a tiny monthly sum from the parents for the service. That was all
very well, and the nuns took fine care of the small people during the
day; but Mariuccia was obstinately set on one point, and she meant
to fight for her convictions; la Giannella was a lady. Providence
above seemed to have overlooked the fact and had steadily refused to
furnish the wherewithal to keep it before the eyes of the world; but
the self-constituted representative of Providence on earth would take
no denial on the subject, and nothing would have induced her to let
Giannella be herded with the children of the city plebeians, to learn
their rough ways, their common speech, to remember when she grew up
that she had been as one of them. It was one thing to be a paying
nursling in the clean, rich country, cared for and cherished by pious,
respectable people like Stefano and Candida, who kept their boys and
girls in the fear of God and would have punished a bad word, an act of
disobedience or even a disrespectful glance, with a sound beating;
it was quite another to mix with low-born children of the city, whose
parents, coming from no one knew where, owned no feudal master, no foot
of land, and had not been obliged to live up to the stern standard of
morals and manners required in the proud "castelli." Giannella had
learned her catechism and many pretty hymns from the parish priest,
and the first elements of reading from some Franciscan nuns at Castel
Gandolfo. Who was to take up the good work and endow her with all the
mysterious instruction which it seemed a lady should possess by the
time her hair went up and her skirts came down?
Mariuccia put the question to her spiritual director, a Capuchin monk
of great age and sanctity, to whom she had been commended by the Curato
at home when she first came to Rome as a young woman some eighteen
years before, and to whom she had been loyally constant, tramping to
his distant monastery on the Palatine once a month from whatever part
of the town she happened to be living in. He could not help her much,
although he said he would keep the matter in mind and see if some
charitable person could get the little girl received as a boarder in
one of the many convent schools. But Mariuccia felt that this was a
vague outlook, and she confided her trouble to the ever-sympathetic
Fra Tommaso, who listened with his usual interest and curiosity to her
story.
"But," he objected, when she had ceased speaking, "what has become of
the relations who used to send you the money for her? Will they not
pay any longer?"
"Fra Tommaso mio," she replied, "I must tell you something. It is now
a long time since they sent any money for Giannella. Perhaps they are
ill--or affairs may not be going so very well over there--what do I
know? Meanwhile I could not let the child want, so you see--"
The sacristan pursed his lips and shook his head. "That is bad--very
bad. And has Signor Bianchi been paying for her? That would be a
miracle indeed."
"No," said poor Mariuccia, driven to tell the humiliating truth at
last, "I have had to find the money myself. Of course the relations
will repay me when they have time, but meanwhile two of my nieces have
got married, and that cost me a great deal; and now, until I hear from
over there," her thumb went over her shoulder indicating the unknown
regions where the Brockmann family was supposed to have its being, "I
do not know what to do. Giannella ought to go to a good school. She is
seven years old, and of an intelligence--God bless her! But I cannot
manage it."
During this speech Fra Tommaso had been thinking with all his might.
Suddenly he banged his forehead with his clenched fist. "Head of a
pumpkin that thou art!" he exclaimed to the delinquent member. "We have
got it--and I never even thought of it. That Principessa of yours--the
Santafede--she was a Cestaldini."
This piece of genealogical information appeared to electrify Mariuccia.
"But what are you telling me?" she cried. "Is it true?"
"Of course it is true," he asseverated; "a Cestaldini, the daughter of
the old prince who died in his palace at Castel Gandolfo just after
Stefano got his leg broken riding the bad mule. Don't you remember,
the church was hung with black for a month? And you snipped off a
piece of the stuff to dress a doll like a 'seminarista' to tease me
with, because I wanted to be a priest? Why, you belong to her father's
people--she must help you. Go to the Princess at once."
"Of course she would help me," Mariuccia replied rather sadly, "if
I could ever get to speak to her. But that is impossible, quite
impossible! I should have to ask the porter to ask the lady's maid to
ask Signora Dati, the Princess's companion, to ask the Excellency--and
the message would never reach Signora Dati. Those familiars have no
hearts. We must think of something else."
"Leave it to me to be done," Fra Tommaso said; "I will see about it."
It was Mariuccia's turn to be curious. "But how?" she asked. "Would it
not be as hard for you as for me to speak with the Excellency?"
"No," he replied; "she comes every morning to the seven o'clock Mass,
and I could speak to her quite easily. But I have a better way. Behold,
is not our Cardinal her brother? And has he not always been for me
of a goodness, of a condescension? Always a kind word or a little
joke when he sees me. 'How does it go, Tommaso? Have you worn out any
more bell ropes with that Herculean ringing?' (Hercules was the first
sacristan of St. Peters, you know, Sora Mariuccia, and was so strong
that he could ring the big bell with his hands.) Or else he says, 'You
are looking thin, my son. You should eat some of your fat pigeons.'
Ah, what an egregious ecclesiastic, what a man of learning, and yet
so simple! To him I will relate these facts, and he will say to his
sister, 'What is this? I learn that you have Botti's Mariuccia in your
house and you have never sent for her to let her kiss your hand? But
this is great neglect! What would our papa of good memory have said at
your thus overlooking one of his people? Let it be remedied at once!'"
Mariuccia clasped her hands, "Fra Tommaso mio," she wailed, "I should
die of fright if I had to pass all those famigliari in the sala and go
into those fine rooms--and in these old clothes! If I were at home I
could wear the costume--but here! No, since you are so condescending,
so kind, do this. Tell that good Eminenza all about Giannella and how
I am astrologizing my head already to feed and clothe her--for the
padrone will not give her so much as a crumb from his table--and get
him to ask the Princess to send her to school. That indeed would be
an action of the greatest merit and the Madonna will accompany you
wherever you go!"