Vittoria d'Oriani had very few companions. Corona Saracinesca really
liked her, for her own sake, and was sorry for her because she belonged
to the family which was so often described as the worst blood in Italy.
Corona and San Giacinto's wife had together presented the Corleone tribe
in Roman society, but they were both women of middle age, without
daughters who might have been friends for Vittoria. On the other hand,
though the Romans had accepted the family on the endorsement, as it
were, of the whole Saracinesca family, there was a certain general
disinclination to become intimate with them, due to the posthumous
influence of their dead uncle, Corleone of evil fame. The Campodonico
people were unwilling to have anything to do with them, even to the
gentle and charitable Donna Francesca, who had been a Braccio, and might
therefore, perhaps, have been expected to condone a great many
shortcomings in other families. Pietro Ghisleri, who generally spent the
winter in Rome, refused to know the d'Oriani, for poor dead Bianca
Corleone's sake; and his English wife, who knew the old story, thought
he was right. The great majority of the Romans received them, however,
very much as they would have received foreigners who had what is called
a right to be in society, with civility, but not with enthusiasm.
Vittoria had, therefore, met many Roman girls of her own age during the
spring, but had not become intimate with any of them. It was natural
that when her brother made the acquaintance of Mrs. and Miss Slayback,
and when the young American took what is usually described in appalling
English as a violent fancy to Vittoria, the latter should feel that
sort of gratitude which sometimes expands into friendship.
They saw much of each other. It is needless to say that they had not an
idea in common, and it would have been very surprising if they had. But
on the other hand they had that sort of community of feeling which is a
better foundation for intimacy than a similarity of ideas.
Miss Lizzie Slayback was not profound, but she was genuine. She had no
inherited tendency to feel profound emotions nor to get into tragic
situations, but she was full of innocent sentiment. Like many persons
who do not lead romantic lives, she was in love with romance, and she
believed that romance had a sort of perpetual existence somewhere, so
that by taking some pains one could really find it and live in it. Her
fortune would be useful in the search, although it was unromantic to be
rich. She had not read 'Montecristo,' because she was told that Dumas
was old-fashioned. She was not very gifted, but she was very clever in
detail. She did not understand Tebaldo in the least, for she was no
judge of human nature, but she knew perfectly well how to keep him at
arm's length until she had decided to marry him. She was absolutely
innocent, yet she had also the most absolute assurance, and bore herself
in society with the independence of a married woman of thirty.
'It is our custom in my country,' she said to Vittoria, who was
sometimes startled by her friend's indifference to the smaller
conventionalities.
The two young girls spoke French together, and understood each other,
though a third person might not at first have known that they were
speaking the same language. Vittoria spoke the French of an Italian
convent, old-fashioned, stilted, pronounced with the rolling southern
accent which only her beautiful voice could make bearable, and more or
less wild as to gender. Lizzie Slayback, as has been said, spoke
fluently and often said the same things because she had a small choice
of language. Occasionally she used phrases that would have made a
Frenchman's hair feel uneasy on his head, and her innocent use of which
inspired disquieting doubts as to the previous existence of the person
who had taught her.
'We think,' she said, 'that it is better to enjoy yourself while you
are young, and be good when you grow old, but in Europe it seems to be
the other way.'
'No one can be good all the time,' answered Vittoria. 'One is good a
little and one is bad a little, by turns, just as one can.'
'That makes a variety,' said Miss Slayback. 'That is why you Italians
are so romantic.'
'I never can understand what you mean by romantic,' observed Vittoria.
'Oh--everything you do is romantic, my dear. Your brother is the most
romantic man I ever saw. That is why I think I shall marry him,' she
added, as though contemplating a new hat with a view to buying it, and
almost sure that it would suit her.
'I do not think you will be happy with him,' said Vittoria, rather
timidly.
'Because he is romantic, and I am not? Well, I am not sure.'
'There! You use the word again! What in the world do you mean by it?'
Miss Slayback was at a loss to furnish the required definition,
especially in French.
'Your brother is romantic,' she said, repeating herself. 'I am sure he
looks like Cæsar Borgia.'
'I hope not!' exclaimed Vittoria. 'Surely you would not marry--' she
stopped.
'Cæsar Borgia?' enquired Lizzie Slayback, calmly. 'Of all people, I
should have liked to marry him! He was nice and wicked. He would never
have been dull, even nowadays, when everybody is so proper, you know.'
'No,' laughed the Italian girl, 'I do not think anybody would have
called him dull. He generally murdered his friends before they were
bored by his company.'
Miss Lizzie laughed, for Vittoria seemed witty to her.
'If I had said that at a party,' she answered, 'everybody would have
told me that I was so clever! I wish I had thought of it. May I say it,
as if it were mine? Shall you not mind?'
'Why should I? I should certainly not say it myself, before people.'
'Why not?'
'It would not be thought exactly--oh--what shall I say? We young girls
are never expected to say anything like that. We look down, and hold our
tongues.'
'And think of all the sharp things you will say when you are married!
That is just the difference. Now, in the West, where I come from, if a
girl has anything clever to say, she says it, even if she is only ten
years old. I must say, it seems to me much more sensible.'
'Yes--but there are other things, besides being sensible,' objected
Vittoria.
'Then they must be senseless,' retorted Miss Lizzie. 'It follows.'
'There are all sorts of customs and traditions in society that have not
very much sense perhaps, but we are all used to them, and should feel
uncomfortable without them. When the nuns taught me to do this, or that,
to say certain things, and not to say certain other things, it was
because all the other young girls I should meet would be sure to act in
just the same way, and if I did not act as they do, I should make myself
conspicuous.'
'I never could see the harm in being conspicuous,' said Miss Slayback.
'Provided one is not vulgar,' she added, by way of limitation.
'Do you not feel uncomfortable, when you feel that everyone is looking
at you?'
'No, of course not, unless I am doing something ridiculous. I rather
like to have people look at me. That makes me feel satisfied with
myself.'
'It always makes me feel dreadfully uncomfortable,' said Vittoria.
'It should not, for you are beautiful, my dear. You really are. I only
think I am, when I have good clothes and am not sunburnt or anything
like that--I never really believe it, you know. But when people admire
me, it helps the illusion. I wish I were beautiful, like you, Vittoria.'
'I am not beautiful,' said the Sicilian girl, colouring a little shyly.
'But I wish I had your calmness. I am always blushing--it is so
uncomfortable--or else I am very pale, and then I feel cold, as though
my heart were going to stop beating. I think I should faint if I were to
do the things you sometimes do.'
'What, for instance?' laughed the American girl.
'Oh--I have seen you cross a ballroom alone, and drive alone in an open
carriage--'
'What could happen to me in a carriage?'
'It is not that--it is--I hardly know! It is like a married woman.'
'I shall be married some day, so I may as well get into the habit of
it,' observed Miss Lizzie, smiling and showing her beautiful teeth.
In spite of such inconclusive conversations, the two girls were really
fond of each other. When Mrs. Slayback looked at Tebaldo's sharp
features, her heart hardened; but when she looked at Vittoria, it
softened again. She was a very intelligent woman, in her way, and,
having originally married for his money a man whom she considered
beneath her in social standing and cultivation, she wished to improve
his family in her own and her friends' eyes by making a brilliant
foreign marriage for his niece. 'Princess of Corleone' sounded a good
deal better than 'Miss Lizzie Slayback,' and there was no denying the
antiquity and validity of the title. There were few to be had as good as
that, for the girl's religion was a terrible obstacle to her marrying
the heir of any great house in Europe in which money was not a paramount
necessity. But Tebaldo assured her that he attached no importance
whatever to such matters. Lizzie was in love with him, and he took pains
to seem to be in love with her.
Mrs. Slayback did not give more weight to her niece's inclinations and
fancies than Tebaldo gave to his religious scruples. The girl was highly
impressionable to a very small depth, skin deep, in fact, and below the
shallow gauge of her impressions she suddenly became hard and obstinate
like her uncle. She had an unfortunate way of liking people very much at
first sight if she chanced to meet them when she was in a good humour,
and quite regardless of what they might really be. She had said to
herself that Tebaldo was 'romantic,' and as his life hitherto might
certainly have been well described by some such word, he had no
difficulty in keeping up the illusion for her.
He saw that she listened with wonder and delight to his tales of wild
doings in Sicily, and he had not the slightest difficulty in finding as
many of them to tell her as suited his purpose. He had been more
intimately connected with one or two of his stories than he chose to
tell her; but he was ready at turning a difficulty of that sort, and
when he introduced himself he treated his own personality and actions
with that artistic modesty which leaves vague beauties to the
imagination. Never having had any actual experience of the rude deeds of
unbridled humanity, Miss Lizzie liked revengeful people because they
were 'romantic.' She liked to think of a man who could carry off his
enemy's bride in the grey dawn of her wedding day, escape with her on
board a ship, and be out of sight of land before night--because such
deeds were 'romantic.' She liked to know that a band of thirty desperate
men could bid defiance to the government and the army for months, and
she loved to hear of Leone, the outlaw chief, who had killed a dozen
soldiers with his own hand in twenty minutes, before he fell with
twenty-seven bullets in him--that was indeed 'romantic.' And Tebaldo had
seen Leone himself, many years ago, and remembered him and described
him; and he had seen most of the people whose extraordinary adventures
he detailed to the girl, and had known them and spoken with them, had
shot with them for wagers, had drunk old wine of Etna at their weddings,
and had followed some of them to their graves when they had been killed.
A good many of his acquaintances had been killed in various 'romantic'
affairs.
Everything he told her appealed strongly to Lizzie Slayback's
imagination, and he had the advantage, if it were one, of being really a
great deal like the people he described, daring, unscrupulous,
physically brave and revengeful, very much the type which is so often
spoken of in Calabria with bated breath, as 'a desperate man of Sicily.'
For the Italian of the mainland is apt both to dread and respect the
stronger man of the islands.
In addition to his accomplishments as a story-teller, Tebaldo possessed
the power of seeming to be very much in love, without ever saying much
about it. He flattered the girl, telling her that she was beautiful and
witty and charming, and everything else which she wished to be; and when
his eyelids were not drooping at the corners as they did when he was
angry, he had a way of gazing with intense and meaning directness into
Lizzie Slayback's dark blue eyes, so that Vittoria would no longer have
envied her, for she blushed and looked away, half pleased and half
disturbed.
Aliandra Basili thought Francesco much more ready and apt to anticipate
her small wishes and to understand her thoughts than his brother. But
when he chose to take the trouble, with cool calculation, Tebaldo knew
well enough how to make a woman believe that he was taking care of her,
which is what many women most wish to feel. With Aliandra, whom he loved
as much as he was capable of loving anyone, Tebaldo felt himself almost
too much at his ease to disguise his own selfishness. But he gave
himself endless trouble for Miss Slayback, and she was sometimes touched
by little acts of his which showed how constantly she was in his
mind--as indeed she was, much more than she knew.
In her moments of solitude, which were few, for she hated to be alone,
she reflected more than once that her money must seem a great inducement
to a poor Italian nobleman; but she was too much in love with the
'romantic' to believe that Tebaldo wished to marry her solely for her
fortune. It was too hard to believe, when she looked at her own face in
the mirror and saw how young, and pretty, and smiling she really was.
Her dark lashes gave her blue eyes so much expression that she could not
think herself not loved, a mere encumbrance to be taken with a fortune,
but not without, in exchange for a title. She was fond of her refined
but not very remarkable self, and it would have been hard to convince
her that Tebaldo's silent looks and ever-ready service meant nothing but
greed of money. Very possibly, she admitted, he could not have thought
of marrying her if she had been poor, but she believed it equally
certain that if she had been an ugly, rich, middle-aged old maid, he
would never have thought of it either.
Besides, Tebaldo had watched with great satisfaction the growing
intimacy between her and his sister, and he took care to play his comedy
before Vittoria as carefully as before Miss Slayback herself. Vittoria,
as he knew, was very truthful, and if her friend asked questions about
him, she would repeat accurately what he had said in her presence, if
she gave any information at all. To his face, Vittoria accused him of
wishing to marry for money, but so long as he affirmed that he loved
Miss Slayback, Vittoria would never accuse him behind his back, nor tell
tales about his character which might injure his prospects. Though he
knew that she rarely believed him and never trusted him, he knew that he
could trust her. That fact alone might have sufficiently defined their
respective characters.