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The Complete Works of F. Marion Crawford
TO LEEWARD
by
F. MARION CRAWFORD
With Frontispiece
P. F. Collier & Son
New York
Copyright 1883 And 1892
By F. Marion Crawford
All Rights Reserved
TO
My Uncle
SAMUEL WARD
OF NEW YORK
THIS NOVEL IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
[Illustration: THE LAST RAYS OF THE SUN SHONE HORIZONTALLY ACROSS THE
TERRACE.]
TO LEEWARD.
CHAPTER I.
There are two Romes. There is the Rome of the intelligent foreigner,
consisting of excavations, monuments, tramways, hotels, typhoid fever,
incense, and wax candles; and there is the Rome within, a city of
antique customs, good and bad, a town full of aristocratic prejudices,
of intrigues, of religion, of old-fashioned honour and new-fashioned
scandal, of happiness and unhappiness, of just people and unjust.
Besides all this, there is a very modern court and a government of the
future, which may almost be said to make up together a third city.
Moreover, these several coexistent cities, and their corresponding
inhabitants, are subdivided to an infinity of gradations, in order to
contain all and make room for all. The foreigner who hunts excavations
does not cross the path of the foreigner who sniffs after incense, any
more than the primeval aristocrat sits down to dinner with the
representative of fashionable scandal; any more than the just man would
ever allow the unjust to be introduced to him. They all enjoy so
thoroughly the freedom to ignore each other that they would not for
worlds endanger the safety of the barrier that separates them. Of
course, as they all say, this state of things cannot last. There must
ultimately be an amalgamation, a deluge, a unity, fraternity and
equality; a state of things in which we shall say, "Sois mon frère, ou
je te tue,"--a future glorious, disgusting, or dull, according as you
look at it. But, meanwhile, it is all very charming, and there is plenty
for every one to enjoy, and an abundance for every one to abuse.
When Marcantonio Carantoni saw his sister married to a Frenchman, he was
exceedingly glad that she had not married an Englishman, a Turk, a Jew,
or an infidel. The Vicomte de Charleroi was, and is, a gentleman; rather
easy-going, perhaps, and inclined to look upon republics in general, and
the French republic in particular, with the lenient eye of the man who
owns land and desires peace first--and a monarchy afterwards, whenever
convenient. But in these days it is not altogether worthy of blame that
a man should look after his worldly interests and goods; for how else
can the aristocracy expect to make any headway against the stream of
grimy bourgeois, who sell everything at a profit, while the nobles buy
everything at a loss? So Marcantonio is satisfied with his
brother-in-law, and just now is particularly delighted because Charleroi
has got himself appointed to a post in Rome; and he goes to see his
sister every day, for he is very fond of her.
In truth, it is not surprising that Marcantonio should like his sister,
for she is a very charming woman. She is beautiful, too, in a grand way,
with her auburn hair, and grey eyes, and fair skin; but no one can help
feeling that she might be quite as beautiful, and yet be anything but
charming; so many beautiful people are vain, or shy, or utterly idiotic.
Madame de Charleroi is something of a paragon, and has as many enemies
as most paragons have, but they can find nothing to feed their envy. She
was very unhappy years ago, but time has closed the wounds, or has
hidden them from sight, and her dearest friends can only say that she
was cold and showed very little heart. When the world says that a woman
is a piece of ice, you may generally be sure that she is both beautiful
and good, so that it can find nothing worse to say. Marcantonio
Carantoni's sister is a paragon, and there are only two things to be
said against her,--she did not marry Charleroi for love, and she has not
done half the things in the world that she might have done.
On the January afternoon which marks the opening of this story, the
brother and sister sat together in a small boudoir in the Carantoni
palace; there was room for all in the great house, and as Marcantonio
was not married, it was natural that his sister and her husband, with
their children, governesses, servants, and horses should occupy the
untenanted part of the ancestral mansion. Up in the second story there
is a room such as you would not expect to find within those grey and
ancient walls, where the lower windows are heavily grated, and huge
stone coats of arms frown forbiddingly from above. It is a room all sun
and flowers and modern furniture, though not of the more hideous type of
newness,--modern in the sense of comfortable, well padded and well
aired. The afternoon sun was pouring in through the closed windows, and
there was a small wood fire in the narrow fireplace. The Vicomtesse de
Charleroi sat warming her toes, and her brother was rolling a cigarette
as he looked at her. A short silence had succeeded a somewhat animated
discussion. She looked at the fire, and he looked at her.
"My dear Diana," said Marcantonio at last, rising to get himself a
match, "what in the world can you have against her? We are not Hindoos,
you know, to talk about caste in these days; and even if that were the
objection, she comes of very proper people, I am sure, though they are
foreigners."
Madame moved her feet impatiently.
"Oh, you know it is not that!" she said petulantly. "As if I had not
married a foreigner myself! But then, if you had felt about it as I feel
about this, I would have thought twice"--
"Have I not thought twice--and three times?"
"Of course, yes--while your head is hot with this fancy. Yes, you have
probably thought a hundred times, at least, this very day. Listen to me,
my dear boy, and do what I tell you. Go away to Paris, or London, or
Vienna, for a fortnight, and then come back and tell me what you think
about it. Will you not do that--to please me?"
"But why?" objected Marcantonio, looking very uncomfortable, for he
hated to refuse his sister anything. "Seriously, why should I not marry
her? Is there anything against her? If there is, tell me."
Donna Diana rose rather wearily and went to the window.
"I wish you would abandon the whole idea," she said. "I am quite sure
you will repent when it is too late. I do not believe in these young
girls who occupy themselves with philosophy and the good of the human
race. Politics--well, we all have a finger in politics; but this
dreadful progressive thought--it is turning the world upside down."
"Oh--it is the philosophy that you do not like about her? Well, my dear
sister, that is exactly what I think so interesting. This young English
Hypatia"--
"Hypatia, indeed!" cried Donna Diana rather scornfully.
"Yes. Is she not learned?"
"Perhaps."
"And beautiful?"
"No,--certainly not. She is simply a little pretty."
Marcantonio shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course," he said, "you will not allow it." His sister looked round
quickly.
"That is rude," she said. In a moment her brother was by her side.
"Forgive me, Diana mia; you know I did not mean it. But you see I think
she is beautiful, and that is everything, after all."
"Yes," answered she, "I suppose it is everything, now. But philosophy is
not everything. Put her out of your head, dear boy, and do not say any
more rude things."
Marcantonio had the power to avoid being rude, but he was not able to
follow the other piece of advice. He could not put her out of his head.
On the contrary, he went out and shut himself up in his own rooms and
thought of her for a whole hour.
He was not at all like his sister in appearance, though he resembled her
somewhat in character. He was of middle height, sparely built, dark of
skin, and aquiline of feature; neither handsome nor ugly, but very
decidedly refined,--gentle of speech and kind of face. Without any more
vanity than most people, he was yet always a little more carefully
dressed than other men, and consequently passed for a dandy. Altogether,
he was a pleasant person to look at, but not especially remarkable at
first sight.
As regards his position, he bore an ancient name, dignified with the
title of marquis; he was an only son, and his parents were dead; he
owned the fine old palace in Rome and a good deal of land elsewhere; he
never gambled, and was generally considered to be rich, as fortunes go
in modern Italy. Of course, he was a good match, and many were the hints
he received, from time to time, to the effect that he would be very
acceptable as a son-in-law. Nevertheless he was not married, and he did
not particularly care for the society of women. In truth, women did not
find him very amenable, for he would not marry, and could not play
adoration well enough to please them. So they left him alone. Grave old
gentlemen nodded approvingly when they spoke of him, and his uncle the
cardinal regarded him as one of the mainstays of the clerical party. As
a matter of fact, he did not aspire to anything of the kind, and was
merely a very honest young nobleman of good education, who had not made
for himself any interest in life, but who nevertheless found life very
agreeable. Possessing many good qualities, he yet knew very well that he
had never been put to the test, nor required to show much strength of
character; and he did not wish to be put into any such position. His
sister was very fond of him, but she sometimes caught herself wishing he
would do something a little out of the everlasting common round of
social respectability. He was twenty-nine years old, and she was a year
younger.
Of late, however, it had become apparent that Marcantonio, Marchese
Carantoni, had not only found an interest in life, but had also
discovered in himself the strength of will necessary to its
prosecution. The dull regularity of his existence was shaken to its
foundations, and out of the vast social sea a figure had risen which was
destined to destroy the old order of things with him, and to create a
new one. There was no doubt about it; not so much because he himself
said so, as because his whole manner and being proclaimed the fact. He
was seriously in love. Worse than that, he was in love with a lady of
whom his sister did not approve, and he evidently meant to marry,
whether she liked it or not.
He was seriously in love; and, indeed, love ought always to be a serious
thing, or else it should be called by another name. There is a great
deal of very poor nonsense talked and written about love by persons only
vicariously acquainted with it; and it is a great pity, because there is
absolutely no subject so permanently interesting to humanity as love,
whether in life or in fiction. And there is no subject which deserves
more tenderness and delicacy, or which requires more strength in the
handling.
The relation of brother and sister is unlike any other. It represents
the only possible absolutely permanent and platonic affection between
young men and young women. Its foundation is in identity of blood
instead of in the spontaneous sympathy of the heart, and even when
brother and sister quarrel they understand each other. Lovers frequently
do not understand each other when they are on the best of terms, and
the small difference of opinion grows by that misunderstanding until it
makes an impassable gulf. Brothers and sisters may be estranged,
separated, divided by family quarrels or by the bloody exigencies of
civil war, but if once they are thrown together again the mysterious
attraction of consanguinity shows itself, and their life begins again
where it had been broken off by untoward fate.
Madame de Charleroi was inclined to be angry with Marcantonio, and when
he was gone she sat by the fire, wondering what he would be like when he
should be married. Somehow she had never thought of him as married,
certainly not as married to a pernicious young English girl, with all
sorts of queer ideas in her brain, and a tendency to sympathise with the
dynamite party. He might surely have chosen better than that. Donna
Diana was not a woman of narrow prejudices, but she really could not be
expected to be pleased at seeing her brother, a Catholic gentleman, bent
on uniting himself to a foreign girl with no fortune, no beauty--well,
not much--and a taste for explosives. He might surely have chosen
better.
Donna Diana thought of her father, and fancied what he would have said
to such a match, the strict old nobleman. And so, between her thoughts
and her memories the afternoon wore on, and she bethought herself that
it was time to go out.
The horses spun along the streets through the crisp golden air, and now
and then a ray of the lowering sun caught them as they dashed through
some open place on the way, making them look like burnished metal. And
the light touched Madame de Charleroi's beautiful face and auburn hair,
so that the people stood still to look at her as she passed,--for every
Roman knew Donna Diana Carantoni by sight, just as every Roman knows
every other Roman, man, woman and child, distinguishing lovingly between
the Romans of Rome and the Romans of the north. By and by the carriage
rolled through the iron gates of the Pincio, and along the drive to the
open terrace where the band plays, till it stood still behind the row of
stone posts, within hearing of the music. The place has been absolutely
described to death, and everybody knows exactly how it looks. There are
flowers, and a band-stand, and babies, and a view of St. Peter's.
The first person Donna Diana saw was her brother, standing
disconsolately by one of the short pillars and looking at each carriage
as it drove up. He was evidently waiting for some one who did not come.
His black moustache drooped sadly, and his face was so melancholy that
his sister smiled as she watched him.
Marcantonio was soon aware of her presence, but he had no intention of
showing it, and studiously kept his head turned towards the drive,
watching the line of carriages. Madame de Charleroi was quickly
surrounded by a crowd of men, all dressed precisely alike, and all
anxious to say something that might attract the attention of the famous
beauty. Presently they bored her, and her carriage moved on; whereupon
they pulled their hats off and began to chatter scandal amongst
themselves, after the manner of their kind. They nodded to Marcantonio
as they passed him in a body, and he was left alone. The sun was
setting, and there was a purple light over the flats behind the Vatican,
recently flooded by a rise in the Tiber. There was no longer any object
in waiting, and the young man sauntered slowly down the steps and the
steep drive to the Piazza del Popolo, and entered the Corso.
To tell the truth, he was disappointed, bored, annoyed, and angry, all
at once. He had fully expected to see her, and to find consolation in
some sweet words for the hard things his sister had said to him. Perhaps
also he had enjoyed the prospect of exhibiting himself to his sister in
the society of the lady in question,--for Marcantonio was obstinate, and
had just discovered the fact, so that he was anxious to show it. Men who
are new in fighting are sure to press every advantage, not having yet
learned their strength; but in the course of time they become more
generous. Marcantonio was therefore grievously chagrined at being
cheated of his small demonstration of independence, besides being a
little wounded in his pride, and honestly disappointed at not meeting
the young lady he meant to marry. In this state of mind he strolled down
the Corso, looked up at her windows, passed and repassed before the
house, and ultimately inquired of the confidential porter, who knew him,
whether she were at home. The porter said he had not seen the signorina,
but that one of the servants had told him she was indisposed. The
marchese bit his black moustache and went away in a sad mood.