CHAPTER IV
Half-an-hour later Giovanni Severi entered the gate below in civilian's dress and asked if he could see Madame Bernard, the French teacher, who had let him know that she was stopping in the palace. The porter told him to ring at the right-hand door on the second landing, but added that it was doubtful whether any one would let him in, as there was 'confusion in the house.'
Madame Bernard was waiting for him, however; he had arrived punctually and she let him in herself.
'Have you heard, Monsieur?' she asked, before he could speak. 'Do you know what is happening?'
'Yes,' he answered. 'All Rome knows it by this time, for the story was in the morning papers. May I see Donna Angela?'
'Come, Monsieur.'
She had fastened the outer door while he was speaking, and she now led the way without any more words.
Angela knew Giovanni's step at a distance, and when he entered she was standing in the middle of the room. He had never before seen her in black, and she was paler than usual; he looked anxiously into her face as he took her hand, and she, meeting his eyes expectantly, saw a change in them. Neither Angela nor Severi spoke at first, and in the silence MadameBernard passed them and went into the next room, shutting the door after her.
'Have you heard?' Angela asked, still standing and still holding Giovanni's hand.
'Yes. It is in all the papers to-day. There is an outcry. If your aunt shows herself in the streets she will be hissed. But she has the law on her side. I have been to two lawyers to inquire.'
He spoke in short sentences, nervously, and when he stopped he bit his moustache.
'There is something else,' Angela answered. 'I see it in your eyes. There is something I do not know, some still worse news. Sit down there by the fire opposite me and tell me everything, for I am not afraid. Nothing can frighten me now.'
She seated herself where she had sat more than half the day, and he took the chair to which she had pointed. She poked the small green logs with the antiquated tongs and watched the sparks that flew upwards with every touch while she waited for him to speak. But he looked at her in silence, forgetting everything for a while except that he was really alone with her, almost for the first time in his life. He changed his position and bent forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands together, so that he was nearer to her. Without turning her face from the fire she saw him in a side-glance, but made no answering motion.
'Tell me what it is,' she said softly. 'Only one thing could hurt me now.'
'It is hard to tell,' he answered in rather a dull voice.
She misunderstood, and turned to him slowly with wondering and frightened eyes. Her hand weakened, without quite losing its hold, and the ends of the clumsy tongs clattered on the brick hearth. The doubt that had sprung upon her like a living thing as soon as she saw him, began to dig its claws into her heart.
'If it is so hard to tell,' she said, 'it must be that one thing.' She turned resolutely to the fire again. 'If it is to be good-bye, please go away quietly and leave me alone.'
The words were not all spoken before he had caught her arm, so suddenly that the old tongs fell on the bricks with a clang. Like him, she had been leaning forward in her low chair, and as he drew her to him she involuntarily slipped from her seat and found herself kneeling on one knee beside him. She gave a little cry, more of surprise than of displeasure or timidity, but he did not heed her. It was the first time they had ever been left alone together, and while he still held her with his right hand his left stole round her neck, to bring her face nearer.
But she resisted him almost fiercely; she set both her hands against his chest and pushed herself from him with all her might, and the red blush rose even to her forehead at the thought of the kiss she almost saw on his lips, a kiss that hers had never felt. He meant nothing against her will, and when he felt that she was matching her girl's strength against his, as if she feared him, his arms relaxed and he let her go. She sprang to her feet like a young animal released, and leaned againstthe mantelpiece breathing hard, and fixing her burning eyes on the old engraving of Saint Ursula, asleep in a queer four-post bedstead with her crown at her feet, that hung over the fireplace. But instead of rising to stand beside her, Giovanni leaned back in his chair, his hands crossed over one knee; and instead of looking up to her face, he gazed steadily down at the hem of her long black skirt, where it lay motionless across the wolf's skin that served for a hearth-rug.
'What is it?' she asked, after a long pause, and rather unsteadily.
He understood that she was going back to the question she had asked him at first, but still he did not answer. She kept her eyes steadily on Saint Ursula while she spoke again.
'If it is not good-bye, what is it that is so hard to say?'
'I have had a long talk with my father.'
Angela moved a little and looked down at his bent head, for he spoke in an almost despairing tone. She thought she understood him at last.
'He will not hear of our marriage, now that I am a beggar,' she said, prompting him.
But Giovanni raised his face at once, and rather proudly.
'You are unjust to him,' he said. 'He is not changed. It is a very different matter. He has had a great misfortune, and has lost almost all he had, without much hope of recovering anything. We were very well off, and I should have had a right to marry you, thoughyou had not a penny, if this had not happened. As it is, my father is left with nothing but his General's pension to support my mother. My brothers will both need help for years to come, for they are much younger than I am, and I must live on my pay if I mean to stay in the service.'
'Is that all?' Angela's voice trembled a little.
'Yes, my pay, and nothing more——'
'I did not mean that,' she hastened to say, interrupting him, and there was a note of returning gladness in her voice. 'I meant to ask if that was all the bad news.'
'It is enough, surely, since it half ruins our lives! What right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me, since I have not enough for us to live on?'
Angela turned quite towards him now and repeated his own words.
'And what right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me? When you gave your word, you thought I had a great name and was heir to a splendid fortune. You were deceived. I am a "destitute foundling"—the lawyers have proved it, and the proof of their proofs is that I am obliged to accept the charity of my old governess, God bless her! If ever a man had a right to take back his word, you have. Take it, if you will. You are free!'
Giovanni stood up beside her, almost angry.
'Do you think I wanted your fortune?' he asked, a little pale under his tan.
'Do you think I am afraid of poverty?'
Her lips were still parted in a smile after she had asked the question, and with the gesture of an older woman she tapped his arm half reproachfully. The colour came back to his brown face.
'I fear poverty for you,' he answered, 'and I am going to fight it for your sake if you have the courage to wait for me. Have you?'
'I will wait for ever,' she said simply as she laid her hand in his.
'Then I shall leave the army at once,' he replied. 'So far, I have made what is called a good career, but promotion is slow and the pay is wretched until a man is very high up. An artillery officer is an engineer, you know, and a military engineer can always find well-paid work, especially if he is an electrician, as I am. In two years I promise you that we shall be able to marry and be at least comfortable, and there is no reason why I should not make a fortune quite equal to what my father has lost.'
He spoke with the perfect confidence of a gifted and sanguine man, sure of his own powers, and his words pleased her. Perhaps what had attracted her most in him from the beginning had been his enthusiasm and healthy faith in the world, which had contrasted brilliantly with her father's pessimism and bigoted political necrolatry, if I may coin a word from the Greek to express an old-fashioned Roman's blind worship of the dead past.
Angela was pleased, as any woman would have been, but she protested against what she knew to be a sacrifice.
'No,' she said decidedly, 'you must not give up the army and your career for the sake of making money, even for me. Do no officers marry on their pay? I am sure that many do, and manage very well indeed. You told me not long ago that you were expecting promotion from day to day; and in any case I could not marry you within a year, at the least.'
'If I do not begin working at once, that will be just a year lost,' objected Giovanni.
'A year! Will that make much difference?'
'Why not ten, then? As if a year would not be a century long, while I am waiting for you—as if it were not already half a lifetime since last month, when we told each other the truth! Wait? Yes, if I must; for ever, as you said awhile ago, if there is no other way. But if it can be helped, then not an hour, not a minute! Why should we let happiness pass us by and not take it when we may and can? There is not enough in the world, as it is; and you cannot even pretend that you are generous if you do not take your share, since what fate means for you is useless for any one else! No, dear, no! We will take the fruit there is on the tree, and leave none to rot on the branch after we are gone. Promise to marry me a year from to-day, and leave the rest to me—will you?'
'Yes—but promise me one thing, too. Do not resign to-morrow, nor next week, as I know you mean to do. Take a month to think it over, and to look about you. You are so impulsive—well, so generous—that you are capable of sending in your resignation to-morrow.'
'It is already written,' Giovanni answered. 'I was going to send it in to-night.'
'I knew it! But you must not. Please, please, take a little time—it will be so much wiser. I will wait for you for ever, or I will promise to marry you a year from to-day, even if we have to live on bread and water. Indeed I will! But, at least, be a little cautious! It will be far better to marry on your pay—and you will surely get your captaincy in a few months—than to be stranded without even that, in case you do not find the work you hope for. Don't you see? I am sure it is good advice.'
Giovanni knew that it was, if caution were ever worth practising in human affairs; but that has often been doubted by brave and light-hearted men. Giovanni yielded a little reluctantly. If she had asked him to make it two months instead of one, he would have refused, for it seemed to him intolerable to lose a moment between decision and action, and his thoughts doubled their stride with every step, in a geometrical progression; a moment hence, a minute would be an hour, an hour a month, a month a lifetime. Men have won battles in that temper; but it has sometimes cost them their life.
'I know you are sensible,' Giovanni said, taking Angela's hand between his, 'but it is to please you that I agree to wait a month. It is not because it looks wise, as it does. For one man who succeeds by wisdom, ten win by daring. Who knows what may chance in a month, or what may happen to put out of reach what I could do to-day?'
'Nothing!'
Angela gave her answer with the delicious little smile of superiority which the youngest woman and even the merest girl can wear, when she is sure that she is right and that the man she loves is wrong. It may be only about sewing on a button, or about the weather, or it may concern great issues; but it is always the same when it comes: it exasperates weak men, and the stronger sort like it, as they more especially delight in all that is womanly in woman, from heroic virtue to pathetic weakness.
'Nothing can happen in a month to prevent you from resigning then, as you could to-day,' Angela said confidently.
The faint smile disappeared, and she grew thoughtful, not for herself, but for him, and looked at Saint Ursula again. Her hand still lay in his, on the edge of the mantelpiece, and while she gazed at the engraving she knew that he was looking at her and was moving nearer; she felt that he was going to kiss her, but she did not resist this time though the colour was rising in her throat, and just under the exquisitely shaped petal of peach-blossom on which his eyes were fixed, and which was really only the tip of her ear, though it was so like the leaf of a flower that the scent of the bloom came to his memory when his lips touched the spot at last.
His hand shut closer over hers at the same moment, and hers fluttered under his fingers like a small soft bird; but there was no resistance. He kissed the tip of her ear, and she turned towards him a little; his kiss pressedher cool cheek, and she moved again; their eyes met, very near, and dark, and full of light, and then his lips touched hers at last.
Destiny has many disguises and many moods. Sometimes, as on that day at the telephone, the unexpected leaps up from its hiding-place and strikes stunning blows, right and left, like Orestes among the steers in Tauris, or a maniac let loose among sane men; but sometimes Fate lurks in her lair, silently poring over the tablets of the future, and she notes all we say, scrawling 'Folly' against our wisest speeches, and stamping 'So be it' under the carelessly spoken jest.
She was busy while the young lovers kissed for the first time, by the mantelpiece; but no inward warning voice had told Angela that she herself was sealing the order of her life irrevocably when she gave Giovanni the best advice she could, and he accepted it to please her, making his instinct obey his judgment for her sake. A man is foolish who takes an important step without consulting the woman who loves him most dearly, be she mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart; but he is rarely wise if he follows her advice, like a rule, to the letter, for no woman goes from thought to accomplishment by the same road as a man. You cannot make a pointer of a setter, nor teach a bulldog to retrieve.
If Giovanni had sent in his resignation that evening, or even during the next day, as he was ready to do, it would have been accepted in the ordinary course of things; he would then, without doubt, have found employment for his talents and energy, either at home orabroad. He would in all probability have succeeded in life, because he possessed the elements of success; he would have married Angela in due time, and the two would probably have lived happily for many years, because they were suited to each other in all ways and were possessed of excellent constitutions. If all this had happened, their story would have little interest except for themselves, or as an example to young couples; and it is a deplorable fact that there is hardly anything so dull and tiresome in the world as a good example. The hoardings along life's dusty roads are plentifully plastered with good examples, in every stage of preservation, from those just fresh from the moral bill-poster's roll, redolent of paste, to the good old ones that are peeling off in tatters, as if in sheer despair because nobody has ever stopped to look at them. May the gods of literature keep all good story-tellers from concocting advertisements of the patent virtues!
The most important and decisive moment in Angela's life, from its beginning to its end, had passed so quietly that she never suspected its presence, and almost the very next instant brought her the first kiss of the only man she had ever loved, or was to love thereafter.
CHAPTER V
Madame Bernard had not overstated the advantages of the lodging she occasionally let to foreign ladies who travelled alone and practised economy, and Angela refused to occupy it till she had satisfied herself that her old governess's own room was just as large and just as sunny and just as comfortable.
In the first place, it was much bigger than she had expected, and when she had spread out all her possessions and put away her clothes, and had arranged her pretty toilet set and the few books that were quite her own, she found that she was not at all cramped for space. The ceiling was not very high, it was true, and there was only one window, but it was a very wide one, and outside it there was a broad iron shelf securely fixed, on which four good-sized flower-pots were set out in the sunshine. It was true that there were no flowers yet, but the two plants of carnations were full of buds and had been very carefully tended, a tiny rose-bush promised to bear three or four blossoms before long, and the pot of basil was beginning to send up curly green shoots. Opposite the window, and beyond the quiet street, there was a walled garden, in which there were some orange and mandarin trees.
Between the two bedrooms there was the sitting-room, which was a little smaller than either, but quitebig enough for two women. Indeed, Madame Bernard ate her meals there all winter, because the little dining-room at the back of the house was not so cheerful and was much colder. An enlarged coloured photograph of the long-deceased Captain Bernard, in the uniform worn by the French artillery at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, hung on one of the walls, over an upright piano; it had a black frame, and was decorated with a wreath of everlasting daisies tied with a black bow. Underneath the portrait a tiny holy-water basin of old Tyrolese pewter was fastened to the wall. This Madame Bernard filled every year at Easter, when the parish priest came to bless the rooms, and every year she renewed the wreath on the anniversary of her husband's death; for she was a faithful soul and practised such little rites with a sort of cheerful satisfaction that was not exactly devout, but certainly had a religious source. Captain Bernard had been a dashing fellow and there was no knowing what his soul might not need in the place his widow vaguely described as 'beyond' when she spoke of his presumable state, though in the case of Angela's father, for instance, it was always 'heaven' or 'paradise.' Apparently Madame Bernard had the impression that her husband's immortal part was undergoing some very necessary cure before partaking of unmixed bliss.
'Military men have so many temptations, my dear,' she said to Angela, thinking more of the deceased Captain than of being tactful,—'I mean,' she said, correcting herself, 'in France.'
Angela was not afraid of temptation for Giovanni;rightly or wrongly, she trusted that her love would be his shield against the wicked world and her name his prayer in need, and she smiled at Madame Bernard's speech. The big old parrot on his perch cocked his head.
'Especially the cavalry and artillery,' the good lady went on to explain.
'À drrroite—conversion!' roared the parrot in a terrific voice of command.
Angela jumped in her chair, for it was the first time she had heard the creature speak in that tone; but Madame Bernard laughed, as if it pleased her.
'It is absolutely my poor husband's tone,' she said calmly. 'Coco,' she said, turning to the bellicose bird, 'the Prussians are there!'
'Feu!' yelled the parrot suddenly, dancing with rage on his bar. 'Feu! 'cré nom d'un nom d'un p'tit bon Dieu!'
'Every intonation!' laughed the little Frenchwoman gaily. 'You understand why I love my Coco!'
But Angela thought there was something grimly horrible in the coming back of the dead soldier's voice from battles fought long ago.
Giovanni came to see her two days after she had moved, but this time Madame Bernard did not leave them together very long. She had a lively sense of her responsibility, now that the young girl was altogether in her charge, and she felt that the proprieties must be strictly observed. It must never be thought that Giovanni was free to see Angela alone whenever he pleased, merely because her people had turned her out.
He looked distressed, and the young girl at once suspected some new trouble; and she was not mistaken, for her advice had begun to bear fruit already, and the inevitable was closing in upon them both.
He told the story in a few words. It had been decided in the War Office for some time that a small exploring and surveying expedition should be sent up the country from the Italian colony at Massowah with the idea of planning some permanent means of inland communication with the British possessions. Giovanni's father had seen a chance for him to distinguish himself and to obtain more rapid promotion, and by using all the considerable influence he possessed in high quarters he had got him appointed to be the engineering officer of the party. The young man had already been two years in Africa, before being appointed to the Staff, and had done exceptionally good service, which was an excellent reason for using him again; and chance further favoured the plan, because the officer who had first been selected for the place, and who was an older man, was much needed in the War Office, to his own exceeding disgust. The expedition might be attended with considerable danger and would certainly be full of adventure, for there had recently been trouble with the tribes in that very region; but to send a strong force was out of the question, for political reasons, though the work to be done was so urgently necessary that it could not be put off much longer.
Old General Severi sincerely hoped Angela might yet marry his son, and was convinced that the best thing possiblewould be to secure for the latter the first opportunity for quick promotion, instead of allowing him to leave the army in order to find more lucrative employment. The expedition would be gone five or six months, perhaps, and there were many reasons why it would be better to keep the young people apart for a time. Any one would understand that, he was sure. While Angela was living obscurely with a former governess, a brilliant young officer of some distinction, like Giovanni, could not see her regularly without seriously compromising her. It was the way of the world and could not be helped, yet if Giovanni stayed in Rome it would be too much to expect that he should stay away from the little apartment in Trastevere. So the matter was settled, and when he came to see Angela that afternoon he had just had an interview with his chief, who had informed him of his appointment, and at the same time of his promotion to be captain. The expedition was to leave Italy in a few days, and he would have barely time to provide himself with what was strictly necessary for the climate. He explained all this to Angela and Madame Bernard.
'If you had only let me resign the other day,' he said ruefully, when he had finished his account, 'nobody could have found fault then! But now, I must face the laugh of every man I know!'
Angela looked up quickly, in evident surprise.
'Why?' she asked. 'I see nothing to laugh at in such an expedition.'
'I am not going to accept the appointment,' Giovanni answered with decision. 'I asked for twenty-four hoursto consider it, though the General seemed very much surprised.'
'But you cannot refuse!' Angela cried. 'They will say you are afraid!'
'They may say whatever occurs to them, for I will not go, and I shall resign at once, as I said I would. My mind is made up.'
'You cannot refuse this,' Angela repeated confidently. 'If you are obliged to admit that there is some danger in it, though you wish there were none, because you safely could refuse to go, it must be very dangerous indeed. Tell me the truth, as far as you know it.'
'It would depend on circumstances——' Giovanni hesitated.
'You have told me that if the Government dared, it would send a large force to protect the expedition. The larger that force would be, the greater the danger if there is no protection at all. Is that true, or not?'
'It is true, in one way, but——'
'There is no condition!' Angela interrupted him energetically. 'It is enough that it is going to be dangerous in one way, as you say!'
'No one can say that I ever avoided danger before,' he objected.
'They will say many things if you refuse to go. They will shrug their shoulders and say that you have lost your nerve, perhaps! That is a favourite expression, and you know how people say it. Or if you make money soon after you resign, they will say that you preferred a fortune to risking your life for your country. Or elsethey will say that a woman has made a coward of you, and that I am she!'
'Coward!' yelled the parrot in a tone of withering contempt, and the creature actually spat in disgust.
Giovanni started violently, for he had not noticed the bird in the room. Then he tried to laugh at his own surprise.
'I do not wonder that you are surprised, Monsieur,' said Madame Bernard with a pleasant smile. 'Oh, Coco has exactly my poor husband's voice!'
'I can brave a parrot's opinion,' Giovanni said, attempting to speak gaily.
'Will you brave mine?' Angela asked.
'You certainly do not think I am afraid to go,' he answered, 'for you know why I mean to refuse. My first duty is to you. As I am placed, it would be cowardly to be afraid to face public opinion in doing that duty, and to keep you waiting six months or a year longer than necessary, when I have promised to provide means for us to marry within a year. That would deserve to be called cowardice!'
'Sale Prussien! 'cré nom d'une pipe!' yelled Coco in a tone of disgust.
'Really!' exclaimed Giovanni, with some annoyance. 'Does the thing take me for an hereditary enemy, Madame?'
Madame Bernard rose with a little laugh and went to the parrot's perch, holding out her hand.
'Come, Coco!' she said, coaxing him. 'It is peace now, and we can go home to Paris again.'
'Paris' meant her bedroom in bird language; it also meant being bribed to be quiet with good things, and Coco strutted from his perch to her finger.
'Marche!' he commanded in a sharp tone, and as she moved he began to whistle the Marseillaise with great spirit.
She marched off, laughing and keeping step to the tune till she disappeared into her room, shutting the door behind her. As it closed Giovanni caught Angela's left hand and drew it to him. She laid her right on his, quietly and affectionately.
'Am I never to see you alone?' he asked, almost in a whisper.
'When you come to say good-bye before starting,' Angela answered. 'I will ask her to leave us quite alone then. But now it will only be for a minute or two.'
Thereupon, with the most natural movement in the world, she lifted her hands, brought his face close to hers and kissed him, drew back a little, looked gravely into his astonished eyes for some seconds, and then kissed him again.
'I love you much more than you love me,' she said with great seriousness. 'I am sure of it.'
It was all very different from what he had expected. He had vaguely fancied that for a long time every kiss would have to be won from her by a little struggle, and that every admission of her love would be the reward of his own eloquence; instead, she took the lead herself with a simplicity that touched him more than anything else could have done.
'You see!' she cried, with the intonation of a laugh not far away. 'I took you by surprise, because I am right about it! What have you to say?'
He said nothing, but his lips hurt hers a little in the silence. She shivered slightly, for she had not yet dreamed that a kiss could hurt and yet be too short. The sound of Madame Bernard's voice came from the next room, still talking to the parrot. Angela laid her hand on Giovanni's gold-laced sleeve and nestled beside him, with her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
'I have always wanted to do this,' she said in a drowsy little voice, as if she wished she could go to sleep where she was. 'It is my place. When you are away in Africa, at night, under the stars, you will dream that I am just here, resting in my very own place.'
She felt his warm breath in her hair as he answered.
'I will not go; I will not leave you.'
'But you must,' she said, quickly straightening herself and looking into his face. 'I should not love you as I do, if I could bear to think of your staying here, to let men laugh at you, as you say they would!'
'It is not like resigning on the day after war is declared!' he retorted, trying to speak lightly.
'It is!' she cried, with a sort of eager anxiety in her voice. 'There is only a difference in the degree—and perhaps it is worse! If there were war, you would be one man in a hundred thousand, but now you will be one in ten or twenty, or as many as are to go. Think what it would be if you were the only man in Italy, the one, single, only officer who could certainly accomplishsomething very dangerous to help your country—and if you refused to do it!'
'There are hundreds of better men than I for the work,' objected Giovanni.
'I doubt it. Are there hundreds of engineer officers on the General Staff?'
'No, but there are plenty——'
'A score, perhaps, and you have been chosen, no matter why, and there is danger, and there is a great thing to be done, perhaps a great good, which in the end will save the lives, or help the lives, of many Italians! And you want to refuse to do it—for what? For a woman, for a girl you love! Do you think she will love you the more, or less, for keeping out of danger, if she is a true Italian as she thinks you are? Why is it that our Italy, which no one thought much of a few years ago, is coming to the front in so many ways now? It was not by staying at home for women's sake that our sailors have got nearer the North Pole than all the others who have tried! It is not by avoiding danger that our officers are learning to astonish everybody with their riding——'
'That is different,' objected Giovanni. 'It is one thing to do daring things——'
'Yes,' interrupted Angela, not letting him speak, 'it is the one and only thing, when it is good daring and can bring good, and helps the world to see that Italy is not dead yet, in spite of all that has been said and written against us and our unity. No, no, I say! Go, do your duty, do and dare, wherever and howsoever your country needs you, and I will wait for you, and be glad to waitfor that one reason, which is the best of all. If you love me half as dearly as I love you, go back at once and tell your chief that you are ready, and are proud to be used wherever you can be of any use! And if there is danger to be faced, think that you are to face it for my sake as well as for Italy's, and not in spite of me, for I would ten thousand times rather that you should die in doing your duty—ever so obscurely—than stay here to be called a coward in order that we may be rich when we marry!'
Giovanni listened, more and more surprised at her energy and quick flow of words, but glad at heart that she was urging him to do what was right and honourable.
'It was for you that I meant to stay,' he said. 'Hard as it is to leave you, it would have been harder to refuse the appointment. I will go.'
A little silence followed, and Madame Bernard, no longer hearing their voices, and having said everything she had to say to her parrot, judged that it was time for her to come back and play chaperon again. She was careful to make a good deal of noise with the latch before she opened the door.
'Well, Monsieur,' she asked, on the threshold, 'has Donna Angela persuaded you that she is right? I heard her making a great speech!'
'She is a firebrand,' laughed Giovanni, 'and a good patriot as well! She ought to be in Parliament.'
'You are a feminist, I perceive,' answered Madame Bernard. 'But Joan of Arc would be in the Chambers if she could come back to this world. The people wouldelect her, she would present herself in the tribune, and she would say, "Aha, messieurs! Here I am! We shall talk, you and I." And our little Donna Angela is a sort of Joan of Arc. People do not know it, but I do, for I have often heard her make beautiful speeches, as if she were inspired!'
'It takes no inspiration to see what is right,' Angela said, shaking her head. 'The only difficulty is to do it!'
'Even that is easy when you lead,' Giovanni answered thoughtfully, and without the least intention of flattering her.
He had seen a side of her character of which he had not even suspected the existence, and there was something about it so large and imposing that he was secretly a little ashamed of feeling less strong than she seemed. In two successive meetings he had come to her with his own mind made up, but in a few moments she had talked him over to her point of view without the least apparent difficulty, and had sent him away fully determined to do the very opposite of that which he had previously decided to do. It was a strange experience for a young man of great energy and distinctly exceptional intelligence, and he did not understand it.
He stayed barely half-an-hour, for Madame Bernard showed no disposition to leave the room again, and he felt the difficulty of keeping up an indifferent conversation in her presence, as well as the impossibility of talking freely to Angela of what was uppermost in her thoughts and his own. It was true that the governess knew all about it, and there are excellent women of that sortwhose presence does not always hinder lovers from discussing their future; but either Madame Bernard was not one of these by nature, or else the two felt the difference of her nationality too much. The French are perhaps the only civilised nation whom no people of other nations can thoroughly understand, and who, with very few individual exceptions, do not understand any people but themselves. They have a way of looking at life which surprises and sometimes amuses men of all other nationalities; they take some matters very seriously which seem of trivial consequence to us, but they are witty at the expense of certain simple feelings and impulses which we gravely regard as fundamentally important, if not sacred. They can be really and truly heroic, to the point of risking life and limb and happiness, about questions at which we snap our fingers, but they can be almost insolently practical, in the sense of feeling no emotion while keenly discerning their own interest, in situations where our tempers or our prejudices would rouse us to recklessness. In their own estimation they are always right, and so are we in ours, no doubt; but whereas they consider themselves the Chosen People and us the Gentiles, or compare themselves with us as the Greeks compared themselves with the Barbarians, we, on our side, do not look down upon their art and literature as they undoubtedly do on ours, and a good many of us are rather too ready to accept them as something more than our equals in both. When I say 'we,' I do not mean only English-speaking people, but other Europeans also. I have overheard Frenchmen discussingall sorts of things in trains, on steamers, in picture-galleries, in libraries, in the streets, from Tiflis to London and from London to the Pacific, but I have never yet heard Frenchmen admit among themselves that a modern work of art, or book, or play was really first-rate, if it was not French. There is something monumental in their conviction of their own superiority, and I sincerely believe it has had much to do with their success, as a nation, in the arts of peace as well as in war. A man who is honestly convinced that he is better than his opponent is not easily put down in peaceful competition, and will risk his life in action with a gallantry and daring that command the admiration of all brave men; and it is a singular fact that German soldiers did not call Frenchmen cowards after the great war, whereas it was a very common thing to hear Frenchmen inveigh against 'those dirty, cowardly Prussians' who had got the better of them. Men who can take such a point of view as that must be utterly unlike other people.
This little digression should explain why Angela and Madame Bernard never quite understood each other, in spite of the elder woman's almost motherly love for the girl and the latter's devoted gratitude.
They talked about Giovanni when he was gone, of course, but neither said all she thought about him, because she feared that the other would think a little differently. The cheerful Frenchwoman had gone through life with the belief that it is better, on the whole, to make oneself comfortable in this world, if it can be managed on honest principles, than to worry oneselfabout heroics, and in the calm recesses of her practical little soul she was sure that, in Angela's place, she would have told Giovanni to resign as soon as possible and find some pleasant and well-paid occupation for his married life. All Angela's talk about a man's duty to his country would be very well in time of war, when there was glory to be got; but it was nonsense in ordinary times, where one man would do as well as another, to risk his life in a small expedition, and when it was distinctly advisable not to be that one. But she knew also that she had better not try to explain this to Angela, who was evidently a little mad on the point, most probably because she was an Italian. For Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Englishmen, and Americans were all completely insane; there was some little hope for Austrians and a good deal for Russians, in Madame Bernard's opinion, but there was none for the rest, though they might be very nice people. The safest thing was to humour them. She had given lessons in Roman families that were half Austrian and even half Russian, for the Romans have always been very cosmopolitan in their marriages, but Angela was quite Italian on both sides, and so was Giovanni. It was therefore pretty certain that they would behave like lunatics, sooner or later, the good lady thought; and they apparently were beginning already.
It is needless to dwell long on what followed, since what has been narrated so far is only the introduction to Angela's story and the exposition of the circumstances which determined her subsequent life. As in most cases,it happened in hers that the greatest events were the direct consequences of one very small beginning. If she had not urged Giovanni to wait some time before leaving the army, he would not have been obliged to remain in the service almost as a matter of honour, yet it had seemed very sensible to advise him to do nothing in a hurry. Everything else followed logically upon that first step.
It was the inevitable, and it was therefore already in nature tragic, before active tragedy took the stage. Yet Angela did not feel its presence, nor any presentiment of the future, when she bade Giovanni farewell ten days after he had first been to see her in Madame Bernard's apartment.
What she felt was just the common pain of parting that has been the lot of loving men and women since the beginning; it is not the less sharp because almost every one has felt it, but it is as useless to describe it as it would be to write a chapter about a bad toothache, a sick headache, or an attack of gout. Angela was a brave girl and set herself the task of bearing it quietly because it was a natural and healthy consequence of loving dearly. It was not like the wrench of saying good-bye to a lover on his way to meet almost certain death. She told herself, and Giovanni told her, that in all probability he was not going to encounter any danger worse than may chance in a day's hunting over a rough country or in a steeple-chase, and that the risk was certainly far less than that of fighting a duel in Italy, where duelling is not a farce as it is in some countries. He would come back withina few months, with considerable credit and the certainty of promotion; it was a hundred to one that he would, so that this was merely a common parting, to be borne without complaint. He thought so himself, and they consoled each other by making plans for their married life, which would be so much nearer when he came home.
Madame Bernard left them alone for an hour in the sitting-room and then came in to say good-bye to Giovanni herself, bringing Coco perched upon her wrist, but silent and well-behaved. Angela was pale, and perhaps her deep mourning made her look paler than she was, but her face was as quiet and collected as Giovanni's. He took leave of the governess almost affectionately.
'Take care of her, Madame,' he said, 'and write me some news of her now and then through the War Office. It may reach me, or it may not!'
He kissed Angela's hand, looked into her eyes silently for a moment, and went out.
'Marche! 'cré nom d'un nom!' screamed the parrot after him, as if he were going too slowly.
But this time Angela could not speak of him with her friend just after he was gone, and when Madame Bernard tried to talk of other things with the idea of diverting her attention, she went and shut herself up in her own room. It was distracting to know that he was still in Rome, and that until nearly midnight, when the train left for Naples, it would be possible to see him once more. If she had insisted, Madame Bernard would have consented to go with her in a cab to find him. Itwas hard to resist, as she sat by the window, listening to the distant sound of wheels in the street; it was the first great temptation she had ever felt in her life, and as she faced it she was surprised at its strength. But she would not yield. In her own gentle womanliness she found something she recognised but could not account for; was it possible that she had some strength of character, after all? Could it be that she inherited a little of that rigid will that had made her father so like her idea of a Puritan? He had always told her that she was weak, that she would be easily influenced by her surroundings, that her only hope must be to obtain Divine aid for her feeble, feminine nature. She had believed him, because he had taught her that she must, even in the smallest things, and this was a great one.
But now something cruelly strong was tearing at her, to make her go into the next room and beg Madame Bernard to help her find Giovanni, if only that she might see his face and hear his voice and say good-bye just once more. She laid her hands on the window-sill as if she would hold herself down in her chair, and she refused to move; not because it looked foolish, for that would not have mattered, but because she chose not to yield. Perhaps she was too proud to give way, and pride, they told her, was always a sin, but that did not matter either. There was an unexpected satisfaction in finding one thin strand of steel among the pliant threads of her untried young will.
Besides, she would have much to bear, and if she did not begin at once, she would never grow used to theburden. That was another reason for not following her instinct, and a very good one.
To help herself, she began to say one of those prayers of which she knew so many by heart. To her surprise, it disturbed her instead of strengthening her determination, and while her lips were moving she felt an almost overwhelming impulse to do what she was determined not to do at any cost. The sensation startled her, and in a moment she felt that tide of darkness rising to drown her which had almost overwhelmed her while she was kneeling beside her dead father. Her hand pressed the stone window-sill in terror of the awful presence.
It is familiar to those few who have knowingly or unwittingly tried to penetrate the darkness to the light beyond. It has been called the Guardian, the Dweller on the Threshold, the Wall, the Destroyer, the Giant Despair. Many have turned back from it as from death itself, some have gone raving mad in fighting their way through it, some have actually died in it, of failure of the heart from fright. Some come upon it unawares in their reasoning, some in the hour of profound meditation; some know by long experience where it is and keep away from it; some are able to pass through it with unshaken mind and unbroken nerves. Scarcely one in a million even guesses that it exists; of those who do, ninety-nine in a hundred turn from it in horror; of the remaining score of those who face it in a whole generation of men, more than half perish in mind or body; the last ten, perhaps, win through, and these are they that have understood the writing over the templedoor, the great 'Know thyself,' the precept of the Delphic Oracle and of all mystics before Trophonios and since.
Angela's lips ceased moving, and very soon she was herself again, quietly sitting there and wondering what had frightened her so badly, and whether there might not be something wrong with her heart, because she remembered how it had beat twice quickly in succession and then had seemed to stand still while she could have counted ten, quite slowly.
What she called her temptation left her at peace till she knew that Giovanni's train had started. In imagination she could hear the engine's whistle, the hissing of the steam from the purge-cocks at starting, the quickening thunder of the high-pressure exhaust, the clanking noise as the slowly moving train passed over the old-fashioned turn-tables, and the long retreating rumble as the express gathered speed and ran out of sight.
Then it was over, for good and all; Giovanni was gone beyond the possibility of seeing him again and the strain relaxed. Angela put out her light, and when she fell asleep a quarter of an hour later, drops she did not even feel were slowly trickling from her lids to the pillow; for there are women who do not easily cry when they are awake, but when they are sleeping their tired eyes shed the pent-up tears and are refreshed by them.
Angela was not left alone with Madame Bernard as much as she had expected after the first few days, nor even as much as she might have wished. The feelingagainst the Princess Chiaromonte was strong, and as soon as it became known that Angela had found a safe refuge with her former governess, she received several invitations from more or less distant connections to spend some time with them in the country during the coming summer. At the present juncture, in the height of the season, it was natural that no one should want a forlorn young girl in deep mourning to make a town visit. She would have been a killjoy and a wet blanket in any house, that was clear, and nothing could be more thoroughly respectable and proper than that she should spend the first weeks under Madame Bernard's roof and protection.
Some of Angela's friends of her own age came to see her by and by and offered to take her to drive in their mothers' carriages or motor cars, but she would not go, and though she thanked them with grateful words for thinking of her, most of them thought, and told each other, that she had not been very glad to see them and would rather be left alone. They supposed that she was still too much overcome to wish for their society, and as young people who drop out of the world after being in it a very short time are soon forgotten, they troubled themselves very little about her. If she ever chose to come out of her solitude, they said, she would be welcome again, but since she wished to be left to herself it was very convenient to humour her, because the Princess Chiaromonte had as good as declared that there were 'excellent reasons' for her own apparently heartless conduct. No one knew what that meant, but when shespoke in that way it was more blessed to accept her statement than to get her enmity by doubting it. The Chiaromonte family were at liberty to settle their own affairs as seemed best in their own eyes, and as the law could not interfere, no one else felt inclined to do so. Angela had no near relations on her mother's side to protect her or take her in.
Six weeks passed away without incident after Giovanni had left, and she had received three letters from him—one from Naples, written before going on board the steamer, one from Port Said, and one from Massowah after his arrival there. The expedition was to start in three days, he said; it had been waiting for him and the officer who was to take the command, and who had gone with him.
A short time after receiving this last letter Angela was reading the news from an evening paper to Madame Bernard, translating the paragraphs offhand into French, by force of habit, because her old governess had often made her do it for practice.
Suddenly her eyes became fixed, the colour left her face, and she dropped the newspaper with a short, loud cry, falling back in her chair at the same moment.
Madame Bernard snatched up the sheet and glanced at the place where the girl had last been reading.
The expedition had fallen in with hostile natives a week after starting and had been massacred to a man. The names of the dead were given, and Giovanni's was the second on the list.