Leonora would not go to Rome when the moment came to decide. She was so
sorry, she said, but the weather had grown suddenly hotter and she
really did not feel as though it were possible. She tried to make up for
it to Marcantonio by being all that day a very model of devotion and
tenderness. She affected a practical mood, and listened with attention
while he explained to her the reasons for his going. She insisted on
seeing herself that he had a small package of sandwiches, and a bottle
of wine, and plenty of cigarettes to last him through the night; and
when he finally drove away, she would have driven with him to
Castellamare, but that she must have come back over the lonely road
alone. To tell the truth, she was a little ashamed of herself; she had
been so anxious to accompany him, and now she feared he might be
disappointed.
Marcantonio saw it all, and was grateful and affectionate, though he
begged her not to take so much trouble.
"En vérité, mon ange," he said more than once, "I might be sailing for
Peru, you give yourself so much thought."
But she busied herself none the less, going about with a queer little
air of resignation that sat strangely on her face. He took an
affectionate leave of her.
"I will not receive any one, if any one calls," she said, as he was
going. He looked at her in some surprise.
"But why in the world?" he asked. "Who should call particularly? Not
even Monsieur Batiscombe,--he thinks you will go with me."
Leonora felt the least faint blush mount to her cheeks, but it was dark
in the hall of the villa, though it was only just dusk, and Marcantonio
could not see.
"Oh, not him," said Leonora. "Only I want to be alone when you are not
here." For a moment again she wished she were going.
"Enfin, my dear," he answered; "do as you prefer; it is very
amiable--very gentil--of you. Adieu, chérie!" and he got into the
carriage and rolled away.
But her words lay in his memory and would not be forgotten. Why should
she not want to see any one? Was there any one? Why had she been so very
anxious to accompany him, begging so hard that he would not leave her?
After all, the only person she could be afraid of was Batiscombe. He
wondered for one moment whether there had ever been anything between
them; he could remember to have seen them together more than once in the
winter, at balls. But then, they always met with such perfect frankness.
He had not watched them, to be sure, but he must have noticed anything
out of the way,--bah! it was ridiculous. Not that he wanted Batiscombe
as an intimate, for the man was certainly called dangerous. He had known
him for years, and had of course heard some of the stories about
him,--but then, there are stories about every one, and Batiscombe had
evidently become very serious since he had got himself a reputation.
Besides, to see him a little, as they did in Sorrento, it could do no
harm; it meant nothing, and he would think no more about it. He was not
going to begin life with the ridiculous whims of a jealous husband, when
he had married such an angel as Leonora--not he! Besides, Batiscombe--of
all people! If it had been his sister Diana, it would have been
different. Everybody knew that poor Batiscombe had loved her ten years
ago, when he was as poor as Job, and had nothing but a fair position in
society. But Marcantonio had been away then on his travels, being just
nineteen, and having been sent out into the world to learn French and
spend a little money on his own account.
Strange that he should almost have forgotten it! Not that it mattered in
the least. The man had loved his sister to distraction, but had soon
recognised the impossibility of such a match, and had gone away to make
his fortune. He had come to see Madame de Charleroi now and then of
late; Marcantonio knew that, but it was perfectly natural that they
should be the best of friends after so many years. How they had first
met, or what had passed between them, Marcantonio did not know, and
never troubled himself to ask; perhaps he feared lest it should pain his
sister to speak of it. But the whole story invested Batiscombe with a
sort of air of safety as regarded Leonora. He had certainly behaved well
about Diana, and nobody denied it. Nevertheless, it was best that he
should not see Diana too often, especially if he intended to live in
Rome, now that he had made his fortune. But Leonora--he might call if he
pleased, and amuse her in the dull summer days. Carantoni would not
begin life by playing the jealous husband. It was certainly odd, though,
that he should have thought so little about that old story. The fact
was, he had never seen so much of Batiscombe in his life as during the
last week or ten days.
Meanwhile, he rolled along the road to Castellamare, and, after a great
deal of shifting, found himself in the night train from Naples for Rome.
He ate his sandwiches and thought affectionately of his wife as he did
so; and then he lay down and slept the sleep of the just until morning.
When he reached the Palazzo Carantoni, the first piece of news he
received was that Madame de Charleroi was in the house, having arrived
the previous day alone,--that is to say, with her courier and her maid.
The old servant volunteered the information that the vicomtesse was
going to stay a week, or thereabouts, and had sent a note to the house
of his Eminence, Cardinal Carantoni, the night before. Marcantonio gave
instructions that she should be informed of his arrival, and that he
would come and see her later in the morning, and he retired to dress and
refresh himself.
He hated family councils, and he saw himself condemned to one, for there
was no doubt of the cardinal's intention, since Madame de Charleroi had
come, and had communicated with him. The cardinal was old, and felt the
need of settling his affairs and of talking them over with his only near
relations,--his nephew and his niece. For he was rich, and had money to
leave.
Marcantonio and his sister greeted each other affectionately, for they
were always glad to be together, and their meeting seemed to have been
unexpected. His Eminence had sent for each separately, and they had
arrived within twenty-four hours of each other,--Diana from Pegli and
Marcantonio from Sorrento. Of course, they talked of trivial matters,
for now that Diana had accepted the marriage there was nothing more to
be said about it. At twelve o'clock they drove to the cardinal's house,
through the hot, glaring streets of Rome, fringed with the red and white
awnings of the shops. The carriage rolled under the dark porch of the
palace, and the pair mounted the cool stairway and were soon ushered
through a succession of dusky halls and swinging red baize doors to
their uncle's study,--a curious, old-fashioned room in an inner angle of
the building. The blinds were drawn, and the occasional chirp of the
lazy little birds came up from the acacia trees in the courtyard.
The room was carpetless, with bright, smooth, red tiles; in the middle
was a huge writing table, covered with papers and books; on one end of
it stood a large black crucifix with a bronze Christ, and there was an
enormous inkstand of glass and brown wood. Around the walls were
mahogany bookcases, ornamented with light brass-work in the style of the
first empire, and filled with books and pamphlets. The room was cool and
dark and high, and as the brother and sister entered, their steps
clicked sharply on the clean, hard tiles. His Eminence sat in an
arm-chair at the writing table, clad in a loose, purple gown, and
wearing a minute scarlet skull cap.
He looked, indeed, as though his life were nearly spent; for, though his
dark eyes shone bright and penetrating from under the heavy brows, his
cheeks were thin and sunken, of the hue of wax, and his white hands were
transparent and discoloured between the knuckles. Marcantonio and Diana
touched the great sapphire on his finger with their lips, and then the
old man laid his hand on the head of each. They were his brother's
children, and he loved them dearly, after his crabbed old fashion; for
all the Carantoni are people of heart and kindness.
"My dear children," he began, when they were seated by his side on
straight-backed chairs that Marcantonio brought up to the table,--"my
dear children, I am growing very old and infirm, and I wanted to see you
here together before I leave you all."
A kind smile played fitfully over the waxen features, like the memory of
life that haunts a plaster mask. Diana laid her fingers gently on his
arm, and Marcantonio broke out into solicitous protestations. His uncle
was not yet sixty,--he had many years of life,--this was a passing
indisposition, a black humour, a melancholy. One should never expect to
live less than seventy years at the very least, he said, and that would
not be reached for a long time.
"Ah! no, dear uncle," he concluded, "you will surely live to see my sons
growing up to be men, and to marry Diana's little girls!"
The cardinal shook his head. That was not the way of it, he said. He
might die any day now, he said, in his meek voice; and it really sounded
as though he might, so that Donna Diana felt her eyes growing dim and
her heart big. She took one of the old man's thin hands in both of hers,
and he with the other pushed back the rich, heavy hair and smoothed it
tenderly. A marvellous picture in sooth they made,--the dying prelate in
his purple and scarlet, and the great unspeakable freshness and life of
the fair woman. Marcantonio passed his hand over his eyes and sighed as
he sat watching them.
Then his Eminence explained to the two what his chief plan was in
calling them to him now. He had made a deed, he said, which he wished
them both to understand. There were certain estates which he had
inherited from his mother,--their grandmother,--as being the second son.
These he earnestly desired to see incorporated in the property of the
Carantoni family. To that end he had made an act of gift, transferring
the lands to Marcantonio at once, on the condition that the cardinal
should continue to receive a certain income from them during his life.
This he insisted upon doing, as he feared lest after his death the lands
should be sold by the executors in order to divide the proceeds between
the two heirs. In order to make the present arrangement a fair one,
however, he at the same time gave to his niece Diana de Charleroi a sum
of money from his personal estate which was equal to the value of the
lands given to Marcantonio. Whatever they found after his death could
then be divided and distributed,--the lands being safe in the male line;
they might find something left after all.
Diana protested; she was very glad that the lands should be settled, but
she did not wish to accept a large sum of money in that way. In fact,
she begged her uncle to reconsider the matter. As for Marcantonio, he
looked grave and wished himself well out of it. He was practically to be
administrator of his uncle's property during the remainder of the
latter's lifetime, and he did not like it. However, as the arrangement
was for the ultimate good of his children, and as he had not Diana's
excuse for refusing on the ground of not wishing to take a gift,--since
it hardly was one,--there was nothing for him to do but to accept the
situation with a good grace.
"You do not deserve anything at all, my boy," said the cardinal, half
kindly, half in earnest, "because you married a heretic. But as I helped
you to obtain the permission, I must do something for you."
"But I," said Diana,--"I cannot take all this. It is not fair to
Marcantonio, for I ought to pay you the income of it, just as he is to
do."
"Nonsense, figlia mia," said the old man. "You need money more than he
does or ever will, with that husband of yours, who is always going from
one court to another on his nonsensical diplomatic errands. Ah! my
children, diplomacy is not what it used to be! Altri tempi--altri
tempi!"
The end of it was that the two young people agreed to their uncle's
provisions, and he insisted on their hearing and understanding all the
papers, to which end he sent for his secretary, a wizened little Roman
with grey hair and bright eyes and a fondness for snuff; and the
secretary read on for two good hours. The old man from time to time
nodded his head to Marcantonio or to Diana, as the one or the other was
referred to in the documents, and waved his pale thin hand in
appreciation of the completeness and simplicity of his arrangements. At
last the various deeds were signed, and a notary, whom the secretary had
provided, was called in from the antechamber where he had waited, and
attested the signatures and the general legality of the proceedings.
The cardinal was satisfied, and leaned back in his chair. He was one of
those old-fashioned noblemen who still believe in the divine right of
primogeniture and in the respectability of land as a possession. With
the modern laws concerning the division of estates,--the keen Napoleonic
knives that cut the strings of succession at every knot,--these
conservative aristocrats have infinite trouble; but they generally
manage to evade the spirit of the law, and to conform as little to the
letter of it as they can.
"Cara mia, one must submit," said Marcantonio to his sister, when they
were alone together. "Old men have strange fancies, and he has always
been good to us. What he said about my marriage was quite true. If he
had not helped me, I should have made a fiasco of it,--or done something
rash."
"I suppose so," said Diana, thoughtfully. "By the bye, are you
comfortable at Sorrento? How is Leonora?"
She was rather ashamed of not having asked the question before, but
Marcantonio was good-natured, and was glad that she had not said
anything hard. And, of course, the moment she mentioned his wife, he was
delighted at the chance to speak of what was nearest to his heart.
"Leonora is well and more than well," he answered. "Ah, she is an angel!
She has not read any philosophy since we married,--imagine! And she was
crazy to come with me to Rome--in this heat!--because she did not wish
to stay in Sorrento alone without me."
"Why did you not let her come, then?" asked Donna Diana.
"She was tired," he said, "and as I told her how fatiguing it was, she
made up her mind to stay. I shall go back to-morrow, I suppose. I wish I
could go to-night."
"So soon?" asked Diana. "But I have seen nothing of you, dear boy!"
"Why not come with me to Sorrento? Do come,--there is room for us all,
and for all your servants into the bargain, if you like to bring them."
Marcantonio was charmed with his idea; it seemed the most natural thing
in the world. Besides, he had longed for an opportunity of bringing
Diana and Leonora together. He was quite sure they would become bosom
friends. Diana hung back, however, and was less enthusiastic.
"I do not see how I could manage it," she said. "I have so many things
to do, and I must go back to Pegli, before long." Marcantonio sat down
beside her and took her hand affectionately.
"Cara Diana," he said coaxingly, "will you not come and make friends
with Leonora? It would be so kind of you, and she would feel it so
much!"
Madame de Charleroi hesitated; not so much on account of her reluctance
to stay with Leonora as because she knew that Julius Batiscombe was
somewhere in the neighbourhood of Naples. She avoided him always,
though she was his best and most faithful friend; for though she had
loved him once, there was not a trace of that left in her heart, and yet
she knew well enough that he loved her still. Her high and noble nature
could not understand so earthly a man as he; she could not conceive how
it was that through all his many affairs he still looked on her as the
one woman in the world; but nevertheless she knew that it was so, and
she therefore avoided him, not wishing to fan a hopeless passion. He
came to see her sometimes, and she was very kind to him, giving him the
best of advice, but she never encouraged him to come. So she was not
anxious to meet him. But the question of her relations with her brother
in the future seemed to make it now desirable that she should go with
him and "make friends" with his wife, as he expressed it.
"Well," she said at last, "I will go with you, and do what you wish."
Marcantonio was very grateful. He felt that his young wife must have
friends--young wives have so few--and he could desire no better friend
for her than his sister, the model of all goodness, gentleness, and
honour.
"Dearest sister," he said, "you are so good! And if you have much to do
here, I can put off going for a day, you know. You can do your little
errands in a day, can you not?"
"I might, perhaps," said she; "but must you not take some steps about
all this land of yours--or of our uncle's? Do you realise what a
position you have assumed, my dear boy? From this day you are absolutely
master of the estate, if you like,--but you are also absolutely
responsible for the payment of the income. You positively must see the
lawyers about it, and you may as well see them at once."
"It is not the whole income of the place that he takes," remarked
Marcantonio.
"That makes no difference," said Diana. "If you were to have it all, it
would be the same. You are bound to take care of it. Your own lawyer
knows nothing about this transaction. You may not be in Rome again for
three months. Make some provision for your absence. Who is to collect
your rents, in the first place?"
"I suppose somebody would," said Marcantonio laughing. "But you have a
much better head for business than I, Diana mia. Perhaps you are right."
"You manage things very well, caro mio, so long as they are under your
hand. But you hate to go and look after business when you want to be
doing something else."
"After all," he argued, "when a man is just married"--
"He ought to be specially careful of his affairs, for his children's
sake," interrupted Donna Diana with remarkable good sense.
She wanted a day or two in Rome, and she thought he was really remiss in
his management. She had rather a contempt for a man who cast everything
to the winds in order to be one more day with his wife. She did not
believe that his wife would have done as much for him.
The end of it was that he agreed to stay a little longer, at least one
day more than he had at first proposed; and he wrote an affectionate
letter to Leonora, half loving, half playful, explaining his position,
and telling her of his sister's coming, that she might be ready to
receive her. He added that he hoped to see them very affectionate and
intimate, for that Diana was the best friend his wife could have. If
Batiscombe had wanted to make a friendship between two women he would
not have gone about it in that way. Marcantonio was very young and
inexperienced, though he was also very good and honest. His sister saw
both sides of his character and understood them. Leonora saw, but only
understood the honesty of him. His inexperience she supposed to be a
sort of paternal, philistine, prosaic, humdrum capacity for harping on
unimportant things, and she already felt the most distinct aversion for
that phase of his nature.
Diana and Marcantonio went down by the night train, having stayed the
better half of a week in Rome. Marcantonio sent a telegram to Leonora in
the afternoon, to say that they would come. They had a compartment to
themselves, and as they sat with the windows all open, rushing along
through the quiet night, they fell into conversation about Sorrento.
Madame de Charleroi had taken off her hat, and the breeze fanned the
smooth masses of her hair into rough gold under the light of the lamp,
like the ripple on the sea at sunset. She was a little tired with the
many doings that had occupied her in Rome, and her face was pale as she
leaned back in the corner. Her brother looked at her as he spoke. 'Of
course,' he thought, 'there was never any one so beautiful as Diana.'
What he said was different.
"You should see Leonora; she is a perfect miracle,--more beautiful every
day. And though she has been on the water several times, she is not the
least sunburnt."
"Have you sailed much?" inquired Diana.
"A good deal. I bought Leonora a very good boat in Naples, and had it
fitted. It is so pretty. And before it came Monsieur Batiscombe took us
to Castellamare."
"Ah!" ejaculated Diana half interrogatively.
"Yes," answered Marcantonio. "He was very amiable, and then we had him
to dinner. You know him, Diana?" he asked, as one often asks questions
of which one knows the answer.
He did not remember having ever mentioned Batiscombe to her, but his
solitary journey to Rome a week earlier had set him thinking, in a lazy
fashion, and he wondered whether his sister ever thought of the man
after all these years.
"Oh yes," answered Madame de Charleroi. "I have known Batiscombe a long
time,--long before he was famous."
"Yes," said her brother, "I remember to have heard that he was once so
bold as to want you to marry him. Imagine to yourself a little! The wife
of an author."
There was nothing ill-natured in what Marcantonio said. In the prejudice
of his ancient name he was simply unable to imagine such a match. Diana
turned her grey eyes full upon him.
"My dear boy, do not say such absurd things. We are not in the age of
Colonna and Orsini any more. I came very near to marrying Julius
Batiscombe, in spite of your fifty titles, my dear brother."
Diana was a loyal woman, from the outer surface that the world saw, down
to the very core and holy of holies of her noble soul. She would not let
her brother believe that, if she had chosen it, she would have feared to
marry a poor literary hack.
"Do you mean to say, Diana, that you loved him?" asked Marcantonio in
great surprise.
"Even you must not ask me questions like that," said Diana, a little
coldly. "But this I will tell you,--it was not for any consideration of
birth, nor out of any regard of our dear father's anger, that I did not
marry Batiscombe. Once I was very near it. We are very good friends
now."
She turned a little in her seat and drew the blue woollen curtain across
the window to shield her from the draught.
"You do not mind meeting him?" asked Marcantonio, rather doubtfully.
To tell the truth he feared he had committed a mortal error, and was
taking his sister into the jaws of danger and unhappiness. He had never
suspected that she had entertained any idea of marrying Batiscombe.
Julius was a very agreeable man, very amiable, as Marcantonio would have
said. What a fearful thing if Diana were to take a fancy to him! Loyal
as she was to Charleroi, she did not care a straw for him,--her brother
knew it very well. Italian brothers are very watchful and Argus-eyed
about their sisters.
"Why should I mind?" asked Diana, looking at him again. "We are very
good friends. He comes to see me in Rome, every now and then. I do not
object in the least, and he is really very agreeable."
'Worse and worse!' thought Marcantonio. 'She wants to meet him and is
glad of the chance. But then, she is so good--what harm can it do?'
Between his idea that he ought to keep them apart, and his knowledge of
his sister's upright character, Marcantonio was in a sad quandary. It
always took him some time to grasp new situations,--and the idea that
Diana had ever loved Batiscombe was utterly new to him. True, she had
not said it; she had only said that she had been near to marrying him.