Sant' Ilario Read online

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  SANT' ILARIO

  BY

  F. MARION CRAWFORD

  AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "ZOROASTER," "A TALE OF ALONELY PARISH," ETC.

  TO

  My Wife

  THIS SECOND PART OF "SARACINESCA" IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED

  CHAPTER I.

  Two years of service in the Zouaves had wrought a change in AnastaseGouache, the painter. He was still a light man, nervously built, withsmall hands and feet, and a delicate face; but constant exposure to theweather had browned his skin, and a life of unceasing activity hadstrengthened his sinews and hardened his compact frame. The clusteringblack curls were closely cropped, too, while the delicate darkmoustache had slightly thickened. He had grown to be a very soldierlyyoung fellow, straight and alert, quick of hand and eye, inured to thatperpetual readiness which is the first characteristic of the goodsoldier, whether in peace or war. The dreamy look that was so often inhis face in the days when he sat upon a high stool painting theportrait of Donna Tullia Mayer, had given place to an expression ofwide-awake curiosity in the world's doings.

  Anastase was an artist by nature and no amount of military servicecould crush the chief aspirations of his intelligence. He had notabandoned work since he had joined the Zouaves, for his hours ofleisure from duty were passed in his studio. But the change in hisoutward appearance was connected with a similar development in hischaracter. He himself sometimes wondered how he could have ever takenany interest in the half-hearted political fumbling which Donna Tullia,Ugo Del Ferice, and others of their set used to dignify by the name ofconspiracy. It seemed to him that his ideas must at that time have beendeplorably confused and lamentably unsettled. He sometimes took out theold sketch of Madame Mayer's portrait, and setting it upon his easel,tried to realise and bring back those times when she had sat for him.He could recall Del Ferice's mock heroics, Donna Tullia's ill-expressedinvectives, and his own half-sarcastic sympathy in the liberalmovement; but the young fellow in an old velveteen jacket who used totalk glibly about the guillotine, about stringing-up the clericals tostreet-lamps and turning the churches into popular theatres, was surelynot the energetic, sunburnt Zouave who had been hunting down brigandsin the Samnite hills last summer, who spent three-fourths of his timeamong soldiers like himself, and who had pledged his honour to followthe gallant Charette and defend the Pope as long as he could carry amusket.

  There is a sharp dividing line between youth and manhood. Sometimes wecross it early, and sometimes late, but we do not know that we arepassing from one life to another as we step across the boundary. Theworld seems to us the same for a while, as we knew it yesterday andshall know it to-morrow. Suddenly, we look back and start withastonishment when we see the past, which we thought so near, alreadyvanishing in the distance, shapeless, confused, and estranged from ourpresent selves. Then, we know that we are men, and acknowledge, withsomething like a sigh, that we have put away childish things.

  When Gouache put on the gray jacket, the red sash and the yellowgaiters, he became a man and speedily forgot Donna Tullia and hererrors, and for some time afterwards he did not care to recall them.When he tried to remember the scenes at the studio in the Via SanBasilio, they seemed very far away. One thing alone constantly remindedhim disagreeably of the past, and that was his unfortunate failure tocatch Del Ferice when the latter had escaped from Rome in the disguiseof a mendicant friar. Anastase had never been able to understand how hehad missed the fugitive. It had soon become known that Del Ferice hadescaped by the very pass which Gouache was patrolling, and the youngZouave had felt the bitterest mortification in losing so valuable andso easy a prey. He often thought of it and promised himself that hewould visit his anger on Del Ferice if he ever got a chance; but DelFerice was out of reach of his vengeance, and Donna Tullia Mayer hadnot returned to Rome since the previous year. It had been rumoured oflate that she had at last fulfilled the engagement contracted some timeearlier, and had consented to be called the Contessa Del Ferice; thispiece of news, however, was not yet fully confirmed. Gouache had heardthe gossip, and had immediately made a lively sketch on the back of ahalf-finished picture, representing Donna Tullia, in her bridal dress,leaning upon the arm of Del Ferice, who was arrayed in a capuchin'scowl, and underneath, with his brush, he scrawled a legend, "Finiscoronat opus."

  It was nearly six o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d of September. Theday had been rainy, but the sky had cleared an hour before sunset, andthere was a sweet damp freshness in the air, very grateful after thelong weeks of late summer. Anastase Gouache had been on duty at theSerristori barracks in the Borgo Santo Spirito and walked briskly up tothe bridge of Sant' Angelo. There was not much movement in the streets,and the carriages were few. A couple of officers were lounging at thegate of the castle and returned Gouache's salute as he passed. In themiddle of the bridge he stopped and looked westward, down the shortreach of the river which caught a lurid reflection of the sunset on itseddying yellow surface. He mused a moment, thinking more of the detailsof his duty at the barracks than of the scene before him. Then hethought of the first time he had crossed the bridge in his Zouaveuniform, and a faint smile flickered on his brown features. It happenedalmost every day that he stopped at the same place, and as particularspots often become associated with ideas that seem to belong to them,the same thought almost always recurred to his mind as he stood there.Then followed the same daily wondering as to how all these things wereto end; whether he should for years to come wear the red sash and theyellow gaiters, a corporal of Zouaves, and whether for years he shouldask himself every day the same question. Presently, as the light fadedfrom the houses of the Borgo, he turned away with an imperceptibleshrug of the shoulders and continued his walk upon the narrow pavementat the side of the bridge. As he descended the step at the end, to thelevel of the square, a small bright object in a crevice of the stonesattracted his attention. He stooped and picked it up.

  It was a little gold pin, some two inches long, the head beaten out andtwisted into the shape of the letter C. Gouache examined itattentively, and saw that it must have been long used, for it wasslightly bent in more than one place as though it had often been thrustthrough some thick material. It told no other tale of its possessor,however, and the young man slipped it into his pocket and went on hisway, idly wondering to whom the thing belonged. He reflected that if hehad been bent on any important matter he would probably have consideredthe finding of a bit of gold as a favourable omen; but he was merelyreturning to his lodging as usual, and had no engagement for theevening. Indeed, he expected no event in his life at that time, andfollowing the train of his meditation he smiled a little when hethought that he was not even in love. For a Frenchman, nearly thirtyyears of age, the position was an unusual one enough. In Gouache's caseit was especially remarkable. Women liked him, he liked them, and hewas constantly in the society of some of the most beautiful in theworld. Nevertheless, he turned from one to another and found a likepleasure in the conversation of them all. What delighted him in the onewas not what charmed him most in the next, but the equilibrium ofsatisfaction was well maintained between the dark and the fair, thesilent beauty and the pretty woman of intelligence. There was indeedone whom he thought more noble in heart and grander in symmetry of formand feature, and stronger in mind than the rest; but she wasimmeasurably removed from the sphere of his possible devotion by herdevoted love of her husband, and he admired her from a distance, evenwhile speaking with her.

  As he passed the Apollo theatre and ascended the Via di Tordinona thelights were beginning to twinkle in the low doorways, and thegas-lamps, then a very recent innovation in Rome, shone out one by onein the distance. The street is narrow, and was full of traffic, even
inthe evening. Pedestrians elbowed their way along in the dusk, every nowand then flattening themselves against the dingy walls to let a cab ora carriage rush past them, not without real risk of accident. Beforethe deep, arched gateway of the Orso, one of the most ancient inns inthe world, the empty wine-carts were getting ready for the returnjourney by night across the Campagna, the great bunches of little bellsjingling loudly in the dark as the carters buckled the harness on theirhorses' backs.

  Just as Gouache reached this place, the darkest and most crowdedthrough which he had to pass, a tremendous clatter and rattle from theVia dell' Orso made the hurrying people draw back to the shelter of thedoorsteps and arches. It was clear that a runaway horse was not faroff. One of the carters, the back of whose waggon was half-way acrossthe opening of the street, made desperate efforts to make his beastadvance and clear the way; but the frightened animal only backedfarther up. A moment later the runaway charged down past the tail ofthe lumbering vehicle. The horse himself just cleared the projectingtimbers of the cart, but the cab he was furiously dragging caught uponthem while going at full speed and was shivered to pieces, throwing thehorse heavily upon the stones, so that he slid along several feet onhis head and knees with the fragments of the broken shafts and thewreck of the harness about him. The first man to spring from the crowdand seize the beast's head was Anastase. He did not see that the sameinstant a large private carriage, drawn by a pair of powerful horses,emerged quickly from the Vicolo dei Soldati, the third of the streetswhich meet the Via di Tordinona at the Orso. The driver, who owing tothe darkness had not seen the disaster which had just taken place, didhis best to stop in time; but before the heavy equipage could bebrought to a stand Anastase had been thrown to the ground, between thehoofs of the struggling cab-horse and the feet of the startled pair ofbays. The crowd closed in as near as was safe, while the confusion andthe shouts of the people and the carters increased every minute.

  The coachman of the private carriage threw the reins to the footman andsprang down to go to the horses' heads.

  "You have run over a Zouave!" some one shouted from the crowd.

  "Meno male! Thank goodness it was not one of us!" exclaimed anothervoice.

  "Where is he? Get him out, some of you!" cried the coachman as heseized the reins close to the bit.

  By this time a couple of stout gendarmes and two or three soldiers ofthe Antibes legion had made their way to the front and were draggingaway the fallen cab-horse. A tall, thin, elderly gentleman, of asomewhat sour countenance, descended from the carriage and stooped overthe injured soldier.

  "It is only a Zouave, Excellency," said the coachman, with a sort ofsigh of relief.

  The tall gentleman lifted Gouache's head a little so that the lightfrom the carriage-lamp fell upon his face. He was quite insensible, andthere was blood upon his pale forehead and white cheeks. One of thegendarmes came forward.

  "We will take care of him, Signore," he said, touching histhree-cornered hat. "But I must beg to know your revered name," headded, in the stock Italian phrase. "Capira--I am very sorry--but theysay your horses--"

  "Put him into my carriage," answered the elderly gentleman shortly. "Iam the Principe Montevarchi."

  "But, Excellency--the Signorina---" protested the coachman. The princepaid no attention to the objection and helped the gendarme to depositAnastase in the interior of the vehicle. Then he gave the man a silverscudo.

  "Send some one to the Serristori barracks to say that a Zouave has beenhurt and is at my house," he said. Therewith he entered the carriageand ordered the coachman to drive home.

  "In heaven's name, what has happened, papa?" asked a young voice in thedarkness, tremulous with excitement.

  "My dear child, there has been an accident in the street, and thisyoung man has been wounded, or killed--"

  "Killed! A dead man in the carriage!" cried the young girl in someterror, and shrinking away into the corner.

  "You should really control your nerves, Faustina," replied her fatherin austere tones. "If the young man is dead, it is the will of Heaven.If he is alive we shall soon find it out. Meanwhile I must beg you tobe calm--to be calm, do you understand?"

  Donna Faustina Montevarchi made no answer to this parental injunction,but withdrew as far as she could into the corner of the back seat,while her father supported the inanimate body of the Zouave as thecarriage swung over the uneven pavement. In a few minutes they rolledbeneath a deep arch and stopped at the foot of a broad marble staircase.

  "Bring him upstairs carefully, and send for a surgeon," said the princeto the men who came forward. Then he offered his arm to his daughter toascend the steps, as though nothing had happened, and without bestowinganother look on the injured soldier.

  Donna Faustina was just eighteen years old, and had only quitted theconvent of the Sacro Cuore a month earlier. It might have been saidthat she was too young to be beautiful, for she evidently belonged tothat class of women who do not attain their full development until alater period. Her figure was almost too slender, her face almost toodelicate and ethereal. There was about her a girlish look, anatmosphere of half-saintly maidenhood, which was not so much theexpression of her real nature as the effect produced by her being atonce very thin and very fresh. There was indeed nothing particularlyangelic about her warm brown eyes, shaded by unusually long blacklashes; and little wayward locks of chestnut hair, curling from beneaththe small round hat of the period, just before the small pink ears,softened as with a breath of worldliness the grave outlines of theserious face. A keen student of women might have seen that the dimreligious halo of convent life which still clung to the young girlwould soon fade and give way to the brilliancy of the woman of theworld. She was not tall, though of fully average height, and althoughthe dress of that time was ill-adapted to show to advantage either thefigure or the movements, it was evident, as she stepped lightly fromthe carriage, that she had a full share of ease and grace. Shepossessed that unconscious certainty in motion which proceeds naturallyfrom the perfect proportion of all the parts, and which exercises a fargreater influence over men than a faultless profile or a dazzling skin.

  Instead of taking her father's arm, Donna Faustina turned and looked atthe face of the wounded Zouave, whom three men had carefully taken fromthe carriage and were preparing to carry upstairs. Poor Gouache washardly recognisable for the smart soldier who had crossed the bridge ofSant' Angelo half an hour earlier. His uniform was all stained withmud, there was blood upon his pale face, and his limbs hung down,powerless and limp. But as the young girl looked at him, consciousnessreturned, and with it came the sense of acute suffering. He opened hiseyes suddenly, as men often do when they revive after being stunned,and a short groan escaped from his lips. Then, as he realised that hewas in the presence of a lady, he made an effort as though to releasehimself from the hands of those who carried him, and to stand upon hisfeet.

  "Pardon me, Madame," he began to say, but Faustina checked him by agesture.

  Meanwhile old Montevarchi had carefully scrutinised the young man'sface, and had recognised him, for they had often met in society.

  "Monsieur Gouache!" he exclaimed in surprise. At the same time he madethe men move on with their burden.

  "You know him, papa?" whispered Donna Faustina as they followedtogether. "He is a gentleman? I was right?"

  "Of course, of course," answered her father. "But really, Faustina, hadyou nothing better to do than to go and look into his face? Imagine, ifhe had known you! Dear me! If you begin like this, as soon as you areout of the convent--"

  Montevarchi left the rest of the sentence to his daughter'simagination, merely turning up his eyes a little as though deprecatingthe just vengeance of heaven upon his daughter's misconduct.

  "Really, papa--" protested Faustina.

  "Yes--really, my daughter--I am much surprised," returned her incensedparent, still speaking in an undertone lest the injured man shouldoverhear what was said.

  They reached the head of the stairs and the men carrie
d Gouache rapidlyaway; not so quickly, however, as to prevent Faustina from gettinganother glimpse of his face. His eyes were open and met hers with anexpression of mingled interest and gratitude which she did not forget.Then he was carried away and she did not see him again.

  The Montevarchi household was conducted upon the patriarchal principle,once general in Rome, and not quite abandoned even now, twenty yearslater than the date of Gouache's accident. The palace was a huge squarebuilding facing upon two streets, in front and behind, and openinginwards upon two courtyards. Upon the lower floor were stables,coach-houses, kitchens, and offices innumerable. Above these there wasbuilt a half story, called a mezzanino--in French, entresol, containingthe quarters of the unmarried sons of the house, of the householdchaplain, and of two or three tutors employed in the education of theMontevarchi grandchildren. Next above, came the "piano nobile," orstate apartments, comprising the rooms of the prince and princess, thedining-room, and a vast suite of reception-rooms, each of which openedinto the next in such a manner that only the last was not necessarily apassage. In the huge hall was the dais and canopy with the family armsembroidered in colours once gaudy but now agreeably faded to a softertone. Above this floor was another, occupied by the married sons, theirwives and children; and high over all, above the cornice of the palace,were the endless servants' quarters and the roomy garrets. At a roughestimate the establishment comprised over a hundred persons, all livingunder the absolute and despotic authority of the head of the house, DonLotario Montevarchi, Principe Montevarchi, and sole possessor of fortyor fifty other titles. From his will and upon his pleasure dependedevery act of every member of his household, from his eldest son andheir, the Duca di Bellegra, to that of Pietro Paolo, the under-cook'sscullion's boy. There were three sons and four daughters. Two of thesons were married, to wit, Don Ascanio, to whom his father had givenhis second title, and Don Onorato, who was allowed to call himselfPrincipe di Cantalupo, but who would have no legal claim to thatdistinction after his father's death. Last of the three came Don Carlo,a young fellow of twenty years, but not yet emancipated from thesupervision of his tutor. Of the daughters, the two eldest, Bianca andLaura, were married and no longer lived in Rome, the one having beenmatched with a Neapolitan and the other with a Florentine. Thereremained still at home, therefore, the third, Donna Flavia, and theyoungest of all the family, Donna Faustina. Though Flavia was not yettwo and twenty years of age, her father and mother were alreadybeginning to despair of marrying her, and dropped frequent hints aboutthe advisability of making her enter religion, as they called it; thatis to say, they thought she had better take the veil and retire fromthe world.

  The old princess Montevarchi was English by birth and education, butthirty-three years of life in Rome had almost obliterated all traces ofher nationality. That all-pervading influence, which so soon makesRomans of foreigners who marry into Roman families, had done its workeffectually. The Roman nobility, by intermarriage with the principalfamilies of the rest of Europe, has lost many Italian characteristics;but its members are more essentially Romans than the full-bloodedItalians of the other classes who dwell side by side with thearistocracy in Rome.

  When Lady Gwendoline Fontenoy married Don Lotario Montevarchi in theyear 1834, she, no doubt, believed that her children would grow up asEnglish as she herself, and that her husband's house would not differmaterially from an establishment of the same kind in England. Shelaughed merrily at the provisions of the marriage contract, which evenwent so far as to stipulate that she was to have at least two dishes ofmeat at dinner, and an equivalent on fast-days, a drive every day--thetraditional trottata--two new gowns every year, and a woman to waitupon her. After these and similar provisions had been agreed upon, herdowry, which was a large one for those days, was handed over to thekeeping of her father-in-law and she was duly married to Don Lotario,who at once assumed the title of Duca di Bellegra. The wedding journeyconsisted of a fortnight's retirement in the Villa Montevarchi atFrascati, and at the end of that time the young couple were installedunder the paternal roof in Rome. Before she had been in her new abode amonth the young Duchessa realised the utter hopelessness of attemptingto change the existing system of patriarchal government under which shefound herself living. She discovered, in the first place, that shewould never have five scudi of her own in her pocket, and that if sheneeded a handkerchief or a pair of stockings it was necessary to obtainfrom the head of the house not only the permission to buy suchnecessaries, but the money with which to pay for them. She discovered,furthermore, that if she wanted a cup of coffee or some bread andbutter out of hours, those things were charged to her daily account inthe steward's office, as though she had been in an inn, and were paidfor at the end of the year out of the income arising from her dowry.Her husband's younger brother, who had no money of his own, could noteven get a lemonade in his father's house without his father's consent.

  Moreover, the family life was of such a nature as almost to precludeall privacy. The young Duchessa and her husband had their bedroom inthe upper story, but Don Lotario's request that his wife might have asitting-room of her own was looked upon as an attempt at a domesticrevolution, and the privilege was only obtained at last through theformidable intervention of the Duke of Agincourt, the Duchessa's ownfather. All the family meals, too, were eaten together in the solemnold dining-hall, hung with tapestries and dingy with the dust of ages.The order of precedence was always strictly observed, and though thecooking was of a strange kind, no plate or dish was ever used which wasnot of solid silver, battered indeed, and scratched, and cleaned onlyafter Italian ideas, but heavy and massive withal. The Duchessa soonlearned that the old Roman houses all used silver plates from motivesof economy, for the simple reason that metal did not break. But thesensible English woman saw also that although the most rigid economywas practised in many things, there was lavish expenditure in manydepartments of the establishment. There were magnificent horses in thestables, gorgeously gilt carriages in the coach-houses, scores ofdomestics in bright liveries at every door. The pay of the servants didnot, indeed, exceed the average earnings of a shoe-black in London, butthe coats they wore were exceeding glorious with gold lace.

  It was clear from the first that nothing was expected of Don Lotario'swife but to live peaceably under the patriarchal rule, making noobservations and offering no suggestions. Her husband told her that hewas powerless to introduce any changes, and added, that since hisfather and all his ancestors had always lived in the same way, that waywas quite good enough for him. Indeed, he rather looked forward to thetime when he should be master of the house, having children under himwhom he might rule as absolutely and despotically as he was ruledhimself.

  In the course of years the Duchessa absorbed the traditions of her newhome, so that they became part of her, and as everything went onunchanged from year to year she acquired unchanging habits whichcorresponded with her surroundings. Then, when at last the old princeand princess were laid side by side in the vault of the family chapeland she was princess in her turn, she changed nothing, but leteverything go on in the same groove, educating her children andmanaging them, as her husband had been educated and as she herself hadbeen managed by the old couple. Her husband grew more and more like hisfather, punctilious, rigid; a strict observant in religious matters, apedant in little things, prejudiced against all change; too satisfiedto desire improvement, too scrupulously conscientious to permit anyretrogression from established rule, a model of the immutability of anancient aristocracy, a living paradigm of what always had been and astubborn barrier against all that might be.

  Such was the home to which Donna Faustina Montevarchi returned to liveafter spending eight years in the convent of the Sacro Cuore. Duringthat time she had acquired the French language, a slight knowledge ofmusic, a very limited acquaintance with the history of her own country,a ready memory for prayers and litanies--and her manners. Manners amongthe Italians are called education. What we mean by the latter word,namely, the learning acquired, is called, mor
e precisely, instruction.An educated person means a person who has acquired the art ofpoliteness. An instructed person means some one who has learnt rathermore than the average of what is generally learnt by the class ofpeople to whom he belongs. Donna Faustina was extremely well educated,according to Roman ideas, but her instruction was not, and was notintended to be, any better than that imparted to the young girls withwhom she was to associate in the world.

  As far as her character was concerned, she herself knew very little ofit, and would probably have found herself very much embarrassed ifcalled upon to explain what character meant. She was new and the worldwas very old. The nuns had told her that she must never care for theworld, which was a very sinful place, full of thorns, ditches, pitfallsand sinners, besides the devil and his angels. Her sister Flavia, onthe contrary, assured her that the world was very agreeable, when mammahappened to go to sleep in a corner during a ball; that all men weredeceivers, but that when a man danced well it made no differencewhether he were a deceiver or not, since he danced with his legs andnot with his conscience; that there was no happiness equal to a goodcotillon, and that there were a number of these in every season; and,finally, that provided one did not spoil one's complexion one might doanything, so long as mamma was not looking.

  To Donna Faustina, these views, held by the nuns on the one hand and byFlavia on the other, seemed very conflicting. She would not, indeed,have hesitated in choosing, even if she had been permitted any choice;for it was clear that, since she had seen the convent side of thequestion, it would be very interesting to see the other. But, havingbeen told so much about sinners, she was on the look-out for them, andlooked forward to making the acquaintance of one of them with apardonable excitement. Doubtless she would hate a sinner if she sawone, as the nuns had taught her, although the sinner of her imaginationwas not a very repulsive personage. Flavia probably knew a great many,and Flavia said that society was very amusing. Faustina wished that theautumn months would pass a little more quickly, so that the carnivalseason might begin.

  Prince Montevarchi, for his part, intended his youngest daughter to bea model of prim propriety. He attributed to Flavia's frivolity ofbehaviour the difficulty he experienced in finding her a husband, andhe had no intention of exposing himself to a second failure in the caseof Faustina. She should marry in her first season, and if she chose tobe gay after that, the responsibility thereof might fall upon herhusband, or her father-in-law, or upon whomsoever it should mostconcern; he himself would have fulfilled his duty so soon as thenuptial benediction was pronounced. He knew the fortune and reputationof every marriageable young man in society, and was therefore eminentlyfitted for the task he undertook. To tell the truth, Faustina herselfexpected to be married before Easter, for it was eminently fitting thata young girl should lose no time in such matters. But she meant tochoose a man after her own heart, if she found one; at all events, shewould not submit too readily to the paternal choice nor appearsatisfied with the first tolerable suitor who should be presented toher.

  Under these circumstances it seemed probable that Donna Faustina'sfirst season, which had begun with the unexpected adventure at thecorner of the old Orso, would not come to a close without some passageof arms between herself and her father, even though the ultimateconclusion should lead to the steps of the altar.

  The men carried the wounded Zouave away to a distant room, and Faustinaentered the main apartments by the side of the old prince. She sighed alittle as she went.

  "I hope the poor man will get well!" she exclaimed.

  "Do not disturb your mind about the young man," answered her father."He will be attended by the proper persons, and the doctor will bleedhim and the will of Heaven will be done. It is not the duty of awell-conducted young woman to be thinking of such things, and you maydismiss the subject at once."

  "Yes, papa," said Faustina submissively. But in spite of the dutifultone of voice in which she spoke, the dim light of the tall lamps inthe antechambers showed a strange expression of mingled amusement andcontrariety in the girl's ethereal face.