On the following morning, just as Minna was preparing to go out to
her studio, there came a tap on the door, followed by the entrance of
Fulvia.
‘I am so sorry, signora,’ said she. ‘Mamma has sent me to say that I
shall not be able to go with you to-day. We are to go out, she and I,
and Signor Marchmont. We shall be out all day, and we shall be busy for
several days.’
She spoke listlessly and mechanically, without a trace of spirit or
animation.
‘Oh, I am sorry. What makes you so busy?’
‘My trousseau,’ replied Fulvia coldly.
‘Your trousseau? Why--has there--is anything settled?’
‘I am to be married in the middle of April--in a month from now. And
it seems I am to be dressed up for it, like our Blessed Lady for a
_festa_.’
She looked drearily round the room; her face was pale, her lips
looked drawn and dry. She went up to the cage where the canaries now
flourished exceedingly in the comfort of Minna’s room, and on the good
food which she gave them, and mechanically brushed some grains of seed
from the cloth into her hand, dropped them into the fender before the
stove, and stood there as if not knowing what to do next.
Minna also did not know what to do, and was filled with impotent rage
at her own want of power or inventiveness, or whatever it might be. The
dreadful thing was coming nearer and nearer, and not a glimpse appeared
in their horizon of any weapon or means of warding it off. After a
moment’s pause, during which all kinds of wild ideas and speculations
rushed through her brain, Minna asked abruptly:
‘Fulvia mia, tell me something. I have a good reason for asking you.
When you first told me of this thing, you said your mother was in debt,
and that Mr. Marchmont was going to pay her debts.’
‘Yes, it is quite true,’ Fulvia nodded. ‘I heard them talking about it.
I heard him tell mamma that she was the hardest-hearted business woman
he had ever met, and that she would wring blood from a stone.’
Minna refrained from comment, and went on:
‘Did you ever hear how much money your mother wanted to pay her debts?
Is it a great deal?’
‘Oh, an enormous sum!’ cried Fulvia. ‘At least ten thousand lire. I
heard them say so. And then he gives her a present as well, but more
than that--far more. I do not know how much.’
Minna almost smiled at first, and then felt a sense of burning rage
at the idea conveyed to her by Fulvia’s words. The girl was then to
be sold for a beggarly four hundred pounds, more or less. So much
was necessary, it would seem, to set Signora Dietrich free from
embarrassment. The rest was simply for luxury, was over and above,
was the premium on her daughter’s wretchedness and degradation. Minna
meditated darkly. She felt restless, feverish with anxiety and the
agitation of a half-formed scheme which had just begun to shape itself
in her mind.
There was a pause. Then she said:
‘Well, cara mia, I am sorry you cannot come to me, but I fear there is
no getting out of this expedition.’
‘Oh no!’ said Fulvia apathetically. ‘I only came to tell you of it. A
rivederci.’
She smiled faintly and drearily, and went away.
Two or three days passed, during which Minna scarcely saw anything
of the three chief actors in the drama. She was left much to her own
devices, and ‘thought the more.’ The weather was mild and exquisite;
they were out all day, now buying things, now off on some excursion or
‘pleasure’ party. There was a subdued bustle about signora’s rooms,
as of dressmakers, milliners and other purveyors of feminine finery
and luxury. It was quite evident that things were being hastened
on to their end. Meantime, the everyday prosaic business of the
_pensione_ went on as usual. The house was full. It was the height of
the season in Rome. Every day people came and went. Every day Signor
Oriole looked more and more busy, more and more shabby, woebegone,
and irritable. Needless to say that he never formed one of any of the
parties or excursions. He went on in a sort of mechanical way, grinding
at the wretched duties which he had taken upon his shoulders long ago;
working out his punishment, and, so far as Minna could judge, and much
to her astonishment, not rebellious, only miserably resigned.
Minna did little work during those days, though she passed a good
deal of time at her studio. She was utterly absorbed in anxious
considerations of a kind perfectly fatal to the abstraction required
for artistic work.
Thus things stood when one afternoon she sat up in her parlour at Casa
Dietrich, with a book idly lying on her knee, as she gazed out into the
clear cold afternoon light, which would soon descend into darkness and
night.
A knock on the door. In answer to her ‘Avanti,’ Fulvia entered.
‘Ah, Fulvia, come in. It is ever so long since I saw you.’
‘Good-evening, signora. I only came to look at my birds,’ said Fulvia
in a low voice. ‘I have neglected them shamefully, but I am sure you
have not.’ She went up to the cage and chirped to them. ‘There is
nothing for me to do,’ she said with a faint smile.
‘All the better. You have been busy. Come here; sit down on this sofa
and tell me how you are.’
Fulvia accepted the invitation, sat down, and stretched out one hand
towards the warmth that came from the stove, from which also came a
dull, pleasant red glow. The room was warm and pleasant, scented with
violets and early roses.
‘It is so delightful here,’ said Fulvia, rather wearily.
‘It is delightful to see you there. But you have been very busy, I
suppose?’
‘Oh, I suppose so. We have rushed from one place to another. We have
seen a great many things, and a great deal of money has been spent. I
am quite bewildered with it. And I have tried on so many clothes. All
day, when I was not having them bought for me, it seems to me that
I was standing there with a woman pinning and fitting, and clipping
things with great scissors. Some of them are ready, and have come home.’
‘But you do not wear them!’ said Minna, whose eyes fell upon the girl’s
dress, and saw that it was the old, much-despised blue woollen thing
which Fulvia had worn when she had first met her.
‘No; I will never put any of them on till I am obliged to,’ said Fulvia
sullenly.
They were both silent for a little while, till Fulvia, presently
leaning forward on the sofa, and clasping her hands round her knees,
said:
‘Signora!’
‘Yes?’
‘Mamma says I am to be married in three weeks.’
‘So soon?’
‘Sometimes I think it is awfully soon. Then, again, I have another
feeling, which is, that three weeks may mean--never. I have such
strange sensations in my mind. I hardly know how to explain them to
you. I feel as if the time would go on and on, and all this foolish
making of dresses, and buying of jewellery might go on too, till the
time comes, and that then I shall not know anything more, but shall
somehow be away, out of it all, flying about in space; as if I should
have become something else--not a girl--not a human creature any more.
I shall be free from all this pain and fear, and from all this weight
which seems to be bound on to my head, and round it; but at the same
time, I shall have forgotten all the things I used to know. I shall not
remember any more what the earth was like, or what Rome was. All the
dreadful things will be forgotten--but all the good things too. For
instance, I should have forgotten mamma and Signor Marchmont, as if I
had never known them; but I should have forgotten you too, and Beppo. I
do not wish to forget you, and to forget Beppo would mean to forget all
the greatest happiness I have ever had.’
‘You must not indulge in such fancies. Grief and joy always go together
here. You will not forget us, any more than we shall forget you.’
‘For the last few days, Signor Marchmont has talked about what “we”
shall do when we are married,’ pursued Fulvia, unheeding Minna’s futile
remark. ‘He has kept asking me questions, and expecting answers to
them. It was dreadful before, when I only had to listen, but now--to
have to answer these questions is frightful. If I could be silent
always--if I were quite sure that I should never need to speak a word
again, I think I could go through anything. But this talking--my head
feels so strange!’ she added, putting her hand up to it. ‘Do you think
I shall be able to bear three weeks more of this, without something
happening? Don’t you think something is sure to happen before then?’
Minna, speechlessly, put out her hand to take that of Fulvia, and while
she held it and sought wildly in her soul for something that might
carry comfort, she saw all at once that a change had come over Fulvia’s
face--a stiffness into her attitude. The hand was cold, the face was
white. She evidently neither heard nor saw anything more, and her
figure began to sway when she stood, for she had risen from her seat
while describing her sensations to Minna.
The latter sprang from her chair, caught her in time to prevent her
falling, and half pulled, half led her toward the sofa, and got her on
to it. There she lay, in a dead faint.
‘Now is my time,’ said Minna to herself. ‘I should be a criminal if I
were to hesitate any longer;’ and with that, after casting one hasty
look towards Fulvia, she left the room, and sped along the corridors
as fast as she could go till she came to Signora Dietrich’s room.
She knocked loudly and unceremoniously on the door, opened it and
confronted the signora, who was writing at a table, and who had just
lifted her head to see what the interruption was.
‘Signora, your daughter is ill. She is fainting. She is in my room.
You had better come to her at once!’ said Minna; and without waiting
for a reply, she flew back to her own quarters, where she found Fulvia
exactly as she had left her.
Scarce two minutes had passed since she had left the room. She scarcely
had time to dash some water on the girl’s face, when a step behind
her--a light but audible footstep--warned her that Signora Dietrich
was in the room. She closed the door with deliberation, came up to the
couch, and looked upon the rigid form of her daughter.
‘What is all this?’ she asked, but without any excitement or irritation
in her manner. ‘What has she been doing? She appeared quite well when
we came in at four o’clock.’
‘No--she is not well. No one is, or can be well, who is so unhappy as
she is,’ replied Minna openly.
‘She is not unhappy,’ replied the signora, still calmly and
deliberately. ‘She is fanciful, she is ignorant, and she is young.
She has always been so much petted and indulged. It is constantly the
case. She thinks, before she is seventeen, that she knows better than
her mother, who is forty-seven, what is for her good and happiness. I
thought exactly the same when my mother married me to Signor Dietrich.’
She was undoing Fulvia’s dress, with skilful and not unkindly hands;
but there was no pity, no sympathy, no unbending in her attitude.
‘And do you feel now that you were wrong, and that your mother was
right?’ asked Minna, beside herself.
Signora Dietrich paused for a moment in her operations, and looked
Minna full in the face.
‘Certainly I do,’ she replied, and fell to work again.
‘A lie,’ said Minna to herself. ‘She did not even get material
prosperity from the bargain.’
‘Did you suffer thus?’ she asked again, and her eyes once more fell
upon Fulvia’s white, rigid, unconscious face.
‘Girls are hysterical,’ was the signora’s reply. ‘There, she is better
now. She was tired. We have had a busy day. I must tell Marchmont that
she must keep quiet to-morrow.’
‘I should advise you to keep her out of his way as much as possible for
the next three weeks, if you wish your plan to be accomplished. She has
had about as much as she can bear.’
‘You are extremely kind, thus to interest yourself in my poor affairs.’
said the signora blandly, in her full musical tones. ‘I am glad to have
this opportunity of thanking you for your disinterested kindness.’
Minna felt the insult that was implied, but she had her end to gain.
She was not to be turned aside from it by a few amenities of this
description. So she replied, as if she had not noticed the tone at all:
‘Fulvia is dear to me. I love her, and wish her to be happy. Is she not
recovering a little now?’
‘Yes. She is going to be better, I think.’
‘It is dark. I will light the lamp,’ said Minna, and she did so
quickly. The light was a good one, and served amply to illuminate the
scene and those taking part in it.
By slow degrees the rigidity gradually left Fulvia’s face and limbs.
A long, shuddering sigh broke from her breast, and her eyes slowly
opened. They fell at once upon her mother, who was standing near her.
Signora Dietrich, despite her impecuniosity, dressed well when once
she had made up her mind to get out of her dressing-gown into her
gown. She had on just now a handsome black satin garment, with a white
lace collar and cuffs. The somewhat florid and profuse style of her
jewellery was the only ‘mark of the beast’ to distinguish her.
‘Mamma!’ exclaimed Fulvia, starting up, and looking round her in a
bewildered way. ‘Where am I, and what has been the matter with me?’
‘Little over-tired, that is all,’ answered her mother. ‘You’ve had
a little faint, as girls will sometimes, when they are excited or
exhausted. Do you feel fit to walk now? Because, if so, we will relieve
Signora Hastings of our presence, and let her have her room to herself.’
Fulvia made no reply. Her face was still very white, and a strange
hollowness had come under her eyes and in her cheeks.
‘Pray do not hurry,’ said Minna. ‘I should like to say something to
you, signora,’ she continued earnestly. ‘Will you not sit down here? I
mean no disrespect to you by anything I may say. Pray remember that.’
Signora Dietrich bowed with cold dignity, and waited. She even took the
chair which Minna offered her. The latter went on:
‘I am sure you wish your daughter’s happiness.’
‘It would be very unnatural if I did not--my only child,’ replied the
lady, but still coldly.
‘And you think to secure it by marrying her to a rich man?’
‘It is not necessary for me to explain what I think. It is absurd to
think we have secured anything, by any arrangements we can make. We
can but act for the best, and await the result. You have lived long
enough in our country to know that our marriage arrangements and our
ideas upon these questions are quite different from those which prevail
in yours,’ said madame, with a scarcely concealed sneer. ‘I thank the
good God that it is so. I may be prejudiced, but I prefer the absolute
obedience to parents, and the retiring modesty which characterizes the
young girls of my country, to the boldness and forwardness which one
sees in the English, and more so, if possible, in the Americans,’ said
Signora Dietrich, clearly and calmly. ‘I have repeatedly heard that
no harm comes of the freedom you accord your girls. I do not believe
it. I have seen many of them, sitting round my own table, as well as
in public places and in my friends’ houses. There is a hardihood, a
boldness, a masculine roughness, about them which is hateful to me,’
she went on, with what was evidently the most sincere and intense
conviction. Minna saw that she was telling the truth now, at least.
‘They walk alone in the streets,’ pursued the signora. ‘No girl can
do that without bad consequences. It is simply impossible. I do not
blame the girls. I pity them. They did not make the institutions of
their country, and are not answerable for them; but if they knew what
graces would be added to them, how much they would gain in charm
and attractiveness, had they but the modesty and bashfulness of our
own Italian girls, they would of their own accord refuse to do the
things which we find so atrocious. Once for all, signora, understand
that I know the customs of our countries are different, and that I
prefer those of my own. In your country a girl is said to choose for
herself--a husband, I mean. The result is, there are more unhappy old
maids in England than in any other country on the face of the earth.
Perhaps they enjoy themselves, or think they do, in the exercise of
their freedom, while they are still young and the world is fair to
them; but they repent it bitterly afterwards, and I have heard more
than one truth-speaking English mother wish that there was something
more like our system prevailing at home. In your country you arrange
marriages secretly and often unsuccessfully, because it is considered
a shame for it to be acknowledged that a girl wants a husband. With
us it is an acknowledged fact that only through having a husband can
she gain any position. Ours is the more honest method of the two. An
unmarried woman is here an anomaly; her position is wretched, her
privileges _nil_. It is the duty of every good mother to provide early
against the possibility of any such lot befalling her daughter. As much
her duty,’ continued the signora with emphasis, ‘as to bring her up
to be modest and virtuous. Do that while she is still a child. When
she is older give her a husband. It is the law of God and the law of
nature, and it is commanded by the Church, in the majority of cases,
that a woman should be a wife and mother; and a child’s fancies must
not be allowed to interfere with the performance, by her mother, of the
most sacred duty. Love, obedience, self-sacrifice, these are woman’s
duties, her privilege, her happiness. My Fulvia shall not have the path
to them closed, and by her own mother. Excuse this long dissertation
on my part. I fancy you were going to say something, and I am prepared
to give it my full attention, from politeness--the politeness which is
habitual in our country--not because you have any right to utter a word
in the matter.’
‘Yes; I had something to say,’ replied Minna, refusing to be befogged
by madame’s eloquence, though she saw that the author of that eloquence
believed firmly in every word she spoke. She was convinced that the
act she contemplated was for Fulvia’s good, as well as to her own
advantage, and this conviction, of course, made it more difficult to
argue with her.
‘This is what I had to say,’ Minna went on, after pausing to draw
breath. She spoke curtly, plainly, and almost roughly. ‘You have
selected for your daughter’s husband a man whom she loathes. He is
not her countryman. He has no such ideas as those you have just been
speaking of. He is rich, but he is not even a gentleman. He is a
vulgar, purse-proud, mean upstart. He is not in society; his manners
are too odious and his stinginess too great to admit him there. Your
daughter will not even gain a position by marrying him. He proposed
to a young Englishwoman who, happier than your daughter, was able to
decide for herself in the matter, and who rejected him with contempt.
Had he ventured to address her again, her brothers would probably have
horsewhipped him--as he deserved. He is a coward. He knows that Fulvia
detests him, and he shelters himself behind your authority, which can
compel her to the hateful marriage with him. All his money cannot make
him anything but detestable to a modest and pure-minded girl--like your
little Fulvia,’ she added, with a slight break in her voice, as she
laid her hand for an instant on the girl’s wrist. ‘You are not doing
your duty by her. You are committing a hideous sin in tying what you
yourself call a modest and virtuous girl to that--bah! I should have no
right to say these things to you if I had not something to propose as
an alternative. You say you love your daughter. In that case, I suppose
you are willing to make some sacrifice for her sake, and to secure her
happiness. I hear that Mr. Marchmont is to relieve you from all money
embarrassments. If I were a rich woman, I would say, “Take twice as
much from me as he gives you.” But I am not rich. I am only moderately
well off. All I can propose is this: If you will release Fulvia from
her engagement, I will provide for her both now and in the future. At
present I will take the whole expense of her maintenance from you. If
she should, later, meet a man whom she could love, and who should wish
to marry her, I will pay her every year half of my income; and I will
at once make a will, leaving my entire property to her at my death. I
am mistress of all that I have, and as my family are well off, they
need not be injured by my taking this course. Fulvia need never fear
care or want if you will agree to this arrangement; and if she will
give me continually the affection she feels for me at present, and
is restored to the happiness which is her right at her age, I shall
be more than repaid. I shall be rich. This is what I offer you. I am
aware that it does not much improve your position, except through your
daughter’s happiness; but as I imagine that to be your main object in
life, I shall know by your acceptance or refusal of my proposal whether
what you say about this is true, or simply an excuse to get what you
want for yourself, not for her.’
‘Signora!’ cried Fulvia, ‘signora! Oh, if I might die for you at this
moment! Mamma! mother! speak--let me be happy again!’
Her voice broke into a wail, as she turned from Minna and looked at her
mother.
Signora Dietrich had not for a moment lost her presence of mind. She
could hit hard, and she could also take hard knocks, unperturbed. She
looked from one to the other of them, calmly, gravely, unwaveringly.
Her voice, when she spoke, was sweet and strong; she threw over her
features an expression of resignation, half sad, half bitter.
‘I see,’ said she, ‘that you are, like most Englishwomen,
straightforward, if somewhat brutal in your way of displaying even
your kind feelings. Your remarks about my future son-in-law are
unwarrantable and quite without foundation. Your offer, however, shows
you to be sincere and well-meaning. You have, I believe, never been
a mother, so you cannot be expected to understand what one who is a
mother feels, on being asked to discard her own careful plans for her
child’s happiness, and to adopt the views of a foreigner, a complete
stranger, unacquainted with her history and her circumstances, and
utterly unable to appreciate what she is doing in the matter. But
I love my child, and this gives me patience. I wish for my child’s
happiness far, far more than for my own, and this endows me with
strength to unfold a story of sorrow about which I should have
preferred to keep silence. I have educated my daughter in the right
way. I am quite confident in the stability of my teaching and of
the principles I have instilled into her mind. I see that her ideas
have been disturbed, her filial piety has been tampered with, her
unreasoning girlish fancies have been fostered, without regard to
any rights or feelings of mine. It is my duty as a mother and as a
Christian to meet this heavy trial with firmness and meekness. I am not
afraid. Mia figlia, you have heard what Signora Hastings has said to
me?’
‘Yes, mamma,’ was the breathless response.
‘Good. Then hear now what I have to say to Signora Hastings and to you.
I will place the two situations before you, and you can choose between
them. I have no doubt as to which course you will pursue.’
She paused for a moment, and then, with solemnity, and sweetness too,
which extorted from Minna an unwilling admiration, she proceeded:
‘Fulvia mia, I must touch upon topics which it is best that young
girls should know nothing about. Signora Hastings has driven me to
this painful position by her no doubt well-meant meddling in a matter
which she does not understand. You will soon be a wife, and your eyes
could not much longer remain closed to much that is sad and evil in
this world. You have always been to me a sweet and obedient child,
and, but for this unhappy interference of a stranger in our affairs, I
believe you would have been the same in this case as in all others. My
daughter, have I ever treated you with unkindness? Recall all you can
remember of your childhood and youth, and tell me, do you recollect any
unkindness from me to you?’
‘No, mamma. You have always, until now, been good to me--kind and
indulgent.’
‘Until now. That is, it seems to you that now I am no longer kind and
indulgent. But has it never occurred to you that perhaps you did not
quite understand all that I am doing?’
Fulvia was silent. She was still seated on the sofa, looking white and
miserable. Signora Dietrich had placed herself beside her, and she now
proceeded:
‘My child! I know even more of your recent thoughts than you suppose.
In your short life you have had little sorrow and much joy--no
deceptions, no disappointments. In mine, which seems to me a long one,
I have lived through grief and bitterness of which you can form no
conception. I pass over that for the present. Just now I ask you only
one question, but I ask it solemnly, and I bid you reply to it with
absolute truth and candour. Never mind if you hurt me. I know what your
answer will be if you speak the truth. On your honour, then, of all
those who surround you, and whom you know--of all your friends, all
your relations, not excepting me--whom do you love the most?’
Fulvia was troubled by this question, and did not immediately reply to
it. Her hands moved nervously; her face grew red, and then pale again.
But at last, raising her eyes, which were filled with a tender light,
she looked full at her mother, and in a very low but perfectly audible
voice replied:
‘Beppo, my mother.’
Signora Dietrich bowed her head gravely and assentingly.
‘Yes,’ she observed. ‘I am glad to find you so truthful. I knew this,
and have long known it. We do not always bestow our greatest love on
the most worthy objects. But I have known this thing, and though it has
many a time lacerated my heart, I have not spoken of it nor reproached
you with it. But the time, however, has now come in which I must speak.
My kindness to you, my good intentions towards you, have been called in
question. Though I have absolute right to dispose of you as I please,
without explaining or justifying myself, I do not choose to do so. Your
mother is weak where her child is concerned--as she was once, in far
other circumstances, weak before, to her cost. Fulvia----’
She rose from her place beside her daughter, and stood before her.
They both had to look up to her. For a moment she preserved silence,
then said, in a distinct, unfaltering voice:
‘Signor Oriole is your father.’
Minna, though she had so long known this thing, felt her heart spring
to her throat. Her emotion caused her physical agony. She sat silent,
her fingers unconsciously tightening themselves, and clutching at her
dress. And she watched breathlessly.
There was a short silence, during which Fulvia stared, as if
fascinated, at her mother, with wide-open, frightened eyes and a dazed,
bewildered expression. Then suddenly she buried her face in her hands,
as if she could no longer bear to look upon what she saw. But she was
silent still. Presently Signora Dietrich, in the same unbroken voice,
went on:
‘This was your mother’s weakness. This is your mother’s sin. Now you
may judge your mother, if you choose. She can have nothing to answer
you. She is at your mercy. She has been punished. Women are made weak,
and then are punished for not being strong. One hard punishment of
mine has been that the man to whom I gave my whole heart, my whole
soul, everything that I had to give--this man has never made me his
wife. Do you suppose that was not hard for a proud woman to bear? Even
after nothing stood in the way--even after I had humbled myself with
tears and prayers for your sake--to ask him for this deed of justice,
he refused it to me. My other punishment--and I swear it has been the
harder of the two to bear--has been that I had to live my life day by
day and see that my child, whom I adored, loved this man better than
she loved me. The heart and the soul must be strong which can go on
with such a life and not succumb to the wretchedness of it. It pleased
God to make me strong in these respects--yes, to give me the strength
even to tell you this story. Now, my daughter, speak! What have you to
say to your mother? Choose between me and your new friend.’
Fulvia uncovered her face. Minna was surprised at its expression. It
had aged, but there was no more any indecision, any pleading, any look
of submissive dependence in it. She, too, rose, made a step towards her
mother, and, looking at her, said:
‘Before I tell you that, tell me why, if Beppo was as bad as you say,
and treated you with cruelty, you stayed in the same house with him?
Why did you let him stay here and work for us--for you and me--as I
know he has done?’
Almost without hesitation, and certainly without the flicker of an
eyelid, the signora replied:
‘For the same reason that has dictated all my other conduct--for your
sake. Alone, I was unequal to the responsibility--the wear and tear of
carrying on this house. When one has no money and no friends, and when
one is alone, one may drown one’s self. When one has one’s child to
live for, one lives through every degradation. That is the reason why I
live under the same roof with him.’
Fulvia bowed her head, smiling with indescribable bitterness.
‘I see,’ said she. ‘For me you have endured these sufferings--meaning
that, when my turn came, I should suffer, too, and should set you free?’
‘I had hoped that it would be your pride and pleasure to do so,’
replied her mother; ‘and I am confronted with the extraordinary
statement that you are not in love with the man who wishes to marry
you. What girl--what decent, virtuous, well-brought-up girl--is ever
in love with her husband when she marries him? What should you know
of love? Heaven forbid that at your age and in your circumstances you
should be acquainted with it. You know now exactly how things stand.
Now and on the spot you must make your decision. Either your engagement
to Signor Marchmont must be honourably carried out, in which case I
must hear no more sighs and complaints, or you must tell me at once
that you prefer to accept Signora Hastings’ offer and go over to her.
Should you thus decide I shall not reproach you, I shall not blame
you. I shall simply say, You cease to be my child; and I shall require
that you both leave my house this night. Here I take my seat. Reflect
as long as you please on the matter; but you will give me your answer
before we leave this room.’
She seated herself, folded her hands on her knee, and waited. Not a
tremor betrayed that she felt any agitation.
Minna confessed to herself that the woman was magnificent in her
cleverness and audacity. She was playing for what to her were the
highest stakes imaginable--money, ease, freedom. She was secure of
victory. There was no hope now for the other side. Minna dared not look
at Fulvia, but, as the girl had not yet spoken, she made a last forlorn
effort, and said in a rather loud, spasmodic voice, which broke in
discordantly upon the silence:
‘Signora Dietrich, you are acting unfairly. You ought not to require
your daughter’s answer without having called Signor Oriole, and given
him the chance of replying to your accusations.’
‘An Englishwoman, then, in such a moment as this would lie, would
she?’ retorted the signora with unbroken calm; but her eyes plunged
themselves into those of Minna with a look of hatred which the other
never forgot. ‘Of course you are Signor Oriole’s advocate. His devoted
attentions to you deserve some reward. I am of course ignorant as to
how you are in collusion in this attempt to divide me and my child.’
Minna received this unexpected backhanded stab with great presence of
mind; looking her adversary full in the face the whole time; but there
was a strange, whirling sensation in her head, the like of which she
had never felt before.
‘You have accused him behind his back. You bid your daughter choose,
without letting him tell his side of the story. You have not told her
all,’ she added, fixing her eyes ever more resolutely on the signora’s
face.
For one instant Signora Dietrich’s eyes wavered, flickered--for one
instant her lips twitched. Then she looked herself again. It was at
this moment that Fulvia’s voice was heard.
‘I hear what you both say,’ she observed. ‘I have heard all that is
needful. Mamma is quite right. The choice must be made now. Suppose
she called Beppo, and told all this story over again. Do you suppose I
want to see poor Beppo more unhappy than he already is? Some people are
born to be happy, and some to be miserable; I know now what I have to
expect. I should be unhappy now, either way. I should be unhappy now,
even with you, signora carissima.’ She looked at Minna. ‘The more I
feel myself justified in accepting your generosity, the more unhappy
I should be, because one must feel one’s friends to be very wicked
before one can leave them all and go away with a stranger. I will not
do that. But I love you for being willing to let me come to you. The
other unhappiness is perhaps not greater; it is different, that is all.
I take it. That is my choice. I only ask one thing of you.’
She turned to her mother, and they could both see that a subtle change
had come over her. Her eyes looked straight into those of Signora
Dietrich, but without any expression, coldly, stonily; and her attitude
took a certain rigidity, she drew herself back as it were. ‘Let
everything go on without change, as quickly as possible, and do not
let us ever speak of this again. It is over--it is done with. Do you
understand?’
‘Perfectly, carissima mia. You have taken the wisest resolution
imaginable,’ said her mother, rising, and pressing a kiss upon her
forehead. ‘I knew,’ she added, with a sweet smile, ‘that the lessons
I had so diligently inculcated could not be without fruit, sooner or
later.’
‘Then we can go,’ said Fulvia, who had all in a moment lost her
childish retirement of manner, and who now spoke as if she were the
person to order how things should be. ‘I wish to speak one word with
Signora Hastings,’ she added; ‘do not be afraid to leave me with her. I
shall follow you in a moment. Everything is quite decided now.’
Signora Dietrich went away with a gracious smile. When she had rustled
away and they were quite alone, Fulvia turned to Minna, and said:
‘What I told you was true. I will not go with you, because there would
be no good and no happiness in it. It is better to be unhappy because
of others than because of one’s self. But do you think I believe that
Beppo is a bad man?’
Her eyes flashed fire as she asked the question with energy, and with
almost solemn earnestness went on:
‘No, he is not bad. There is something bad behind it all--something so
bad that I do not want to know it. But he is not bad. Signora,’ she
bent to Minna, and whispered passionately in her ear, ‘I am _glad_ he
is my father. It is the one good thing I have heard to-night.’
She then gave Minna a hasty kiss on the cheek and one on the hand,
and in a moment Mrs. Hastings was alone. Quiet though the interview
had been, there was now a singing in Minna’s ears, a rushing noise in
her head, and a tremulousness in her throat, with a general feeling
of collapse and _bouleversement_ which told how strong had been the
excitement, and how intense the strain of the whole episode.
‘And she has conquered, and she does not care a straw; she has got what
she wants,’ Minna muttered between her teeth, and then tears of rage
and disappointment came to her relief. She wept till she was weary, and
all the excitement had evaporated.