Читать книгу Because of These Things - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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Several hours after the dawn when Francis and Giovanna had parted, Vittoria Odaleschi entered her daughter's chamber.

The girl was seated by her white damask-hung bed, her elbow resting on her knee, her chin resting on her hand.

"Vanna," said the Contessa sharply, "what is the matter? Emilia tells me that you have refused to go with her party to the casini. Are you ill?"

Giovanna shivered.

"Yes, I think so," she answered faintly.

"Why did you not come to Mass this morning?" demanded Vittoria, closing the door; she sat down near her daughter, her billowing panniers and huge skirt, all glittering with gold tinsel, wholly concealing the chair.

Giovanna held out her right hand in which a letter was crushed; her face frightened her mother, for her eyes were heavy, her lips swollen and dry with fever, her cheeks colourless.

"I love a man and he loves me," she said fiercely, "and—he is going away."

Vittoria put down the coquettish tricorne hat, mask, and black lace shawl she carried, her eyes sparkled and her features blanched beneath the French red and white.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"The Scotch milord," cried out Giovanna; "he is flying from me! Why? Am I ugly or hateful? Madonna, help me to bring him back."

Vittoria had scarcely noticed the man, never even perceived that he had left the palace.

"Speak to me coherently," she said in a calm voice; "tell me everything."

"There is nothing to say," returned Giovanna; "we met yesterday—we loved. I rose early this morning to pray the Virgin send us happiness, and when I left the chapel I met him—he was leaving—he would not stay nor tell me where he would lodge, but all the while I knew he loved me. I sent my page to follow him—he was at 'La Corona d'Oro.' I wrote to him, asking him to come back—he answered me—" she held out the crumpled scrap of paper in her hot, moist hand—"refusing—I do not understand."

The Contessa did not understand either; her world was a world where women were paramount, the amusement and the authority of a decadent age, and no man refused to interpret aright the language of gallantry nor to accept a lady's favour. But this was not what troubled Vittoria, the thing that cut to her heart was to see the marks of passion in Giovanna's wretchedness, that Southern passion was even more her daughter's inheritance than her own.

"Who is this man?" she asked with deep anger.

"I do not know," answered Giovanna. "I love him."

Vittoria rose.

"Only yesterday," she said, "I told you what I intended for you," her eyes blazed. "You will have no lover till you are safely married."

"I shall only have this one lover all my life," replied Giovanna.

Vittoria laughed.

"You had better have stayed in your convent," she said.

Giovanna pressed the letter to her lips and rocked herself to and fro.

"Bring him back to me," she implored.

"Vanna," cried the Contessa impatiently, "you must never see this man again."

Giovanna laughed now, and the sound of it frightened her mother.

"I love him," she repeated, rising in her dishevelled mob and pushing back her fallen hair; "do you not understand? And if I cannot have him for my lover and my husband—"

"Your husband?" broke in Vittoria.

"My husband," repeated the girl, "mine for always! He must come back to me or I shall be mad—think of it "—she put her hand to her throat and the words came hoarsely—"he—will—go—away, and one day some other woman—Oh Dio! save me!"

She sank on her knees on the bedstep, and abandoned herself to bitter sobbing.

Vittoria looked at her with dismay and anger but little pity.

"You will not give yourself to this nameless foreigner, this rude heretic, this barbarian," she said with great pride and authority. "Do you think that I have guarded you, adored you, tended you, for that? Forget this man—"

Giovanna lifted her haggard face.

"You were not so old as I," she said, "you did as you chose—you married where you loved—"

"You speak of what you do not know," returned the Contessa sternly. "I made mistakes, and I want to save you from them—"

"This is another life and another mistake, mine, not yours," said Giovanna passionately. "Do not tell of the past—this is my time now; if you will not help me, I will win him for myself—he loves me—"

"He flies you," cried Vittoria, catching at straws, "he does not appreciate you, you, my daughter, worthy of a prince—"

"He loves me," answered Giovanna; "could I but see him he would not leave me. Oh, heart, heart! Mother, he must not leave Bologna to-night—"

Vittoria caught her by the shoulders and dragged her to her feet.

"What do you want from life?" she asked; "think, you are not a child. Here is everything women want—to your hand, for the picking up—consider, you like these things—gallantries, luxuries, idleness—"

"I liked such pleasures till yesterday," interrupted Giovanna; "now I do not care—no, for none of these—"

She lifted her tear-stained face defiantly, and Vittoria stared down into it with frightened, angry eyes. She could not blind herself to the sincerity and force with which her daughter spoke, and she knew what a power passion could be, but her life had too long been idle intrigue and restless liberty for her to consider the question of such self-sacrifice as Giovanna wildly proposed, nor had she it in her to conceive an unselfish love for any man.

"You mean you would leave me, leave your country, and go with this man if he asked you?" she demanded.

"Yes," shivered Giovanna, "at once—anywhere—"

"He is a foreigner," remarked Vittoria bitterly, "and a cursed heretic—and what can he give you?"

"It does not matter," answered the girl. "You speak as if I were thinking of my own advantages—and I tell you—" she drew herself away from her mother's grasp—"that I love him."

The English blood that was in the Contessa and that made her so bold, so prudent, and often so eccentric, helped her to take a practical view of this fantastic affair; all the graces and languishing coquetries of the famous beauty fell from her; she looked her age, and her face formed into hard lines.

Giovanna had fallen across the bed again, and the fine contours of her long, slack limbs showed through the twisted folds of her muslin gown; her face was concealed in her hands, and the knot of rose-coloured ribbons which fastened her curls was slipping down the silken length of her hair.

"Let me see the letter," said Vittoria. She took the crumpled paper from the girl's moist, hot hand and spread it out.

"Signora Contessa,—I thank you for your offer of further hospitality, but I may stay no longer in Bologna, therefore I cannot even wait on you this afternoon, which is to the regret of your obedient servant,

"Francis Moutray of Glenillich—"

As the Contessa read this letter she flushed angrily.

"A boor," she said, with an accent of scorn, "a barbarian—and if I remember well, a man of insignificant aspect."

Giovanna at once sat up; her face too was crimson and her whole body shook; Vittoria had used the unforgivable weapon in scorning the man her daughter had chosen; the girl's tears died in an angry heat, she felt wronged and bitter, she recalled gallants of her mother's whom shewould have spurned, and her heart swelled.

But Vittoria continued, careless or unheeding—

"And with this creature you would fly the delights of Bologna—the future I can assure you!" she said. "It is a caprice of youth, and a foolish caprice, and I pray you forget it."

Giovanna's clear brown eyes flashed black with passion, but she made no answer.

"There are better gallants than this," added Vittoria, flicking Francis' letter with her delicate finger-nails, "to be had by lifting an eyebrow—put a cushion on the balcony and smile down the street for half an hour and you will have a dozen to choose from better than this Francis Moutray."

Giovanna's heart suddenly and for ever closed to her mother, who was, she told herself passionately, either incredibly stupid or incredibly cruel—at least it was plain that she either did not or would not understand, and a deep reserve fell over Giovanna's heart concealing the tumult, the passion, and the pain.

Still she did not speak, and Vittoria stood helpless, not able to read her at all.

"It is impossible that you can love this man," said the Contessa at last, flinging down the letter.

Giovanna looked away and smiled.

"It is not love, it is fancy," continued Vittoria; "do I not know?"

"Too much!" flashed Giovanna, "too much, Madonna, ever to understand me!"

"Do you scoff at experience, you foolish child?"

Giovanna rose with a certain dignity and a certain calm.

"Your experience is no use to me," she answered. "I am free, am I not? My life is my own—"

"You are mine," interrupted Vittoria, with pain in her voice.

Giovanna shook her small head.

"No—God made me a free creature—and if you will not help me, I will pray to Him and to the Virgin to give me good counsel."

"God will not listen to you," said the Contessa angrily. "What you ask is mortal sin—this man is a heretic."

Giovanna trembled.

"There is that between you that nothing can bridge," added Vittoria.

Giovanna turned sharply away. Francis Moutray had used these very words that morning; foreboding and despair fell over her heart; she moved to the elaborate and frivolous toilet-table covered with scents, unguents, and washes in gold and silver boxes.

"It is he and he only," she said, more as if speaking aloud to herself than addressing her mother. "I shall never care for anyone else—never even see anyone else. It is for all my life."

To the Contessa these words sounded like folly; she knew passion and devotion, emotion and sentiment, but she despised constancy, and all her instincts and training and experience were against a single love exalted by self sacrifice, nor could she regard marriage as anything but a step of material advancement and a safe-guarding of reputation in a woman's life.

She smiled, and Giovanna, in the depths of the dressing mirror, saw the smile, and the breach between them was complete, though the Contessa was not entirely aware how she had stung her daughter.

Nor was she at that moment watching Giovanna; her quick and daring brain was already conceiving a plan to end this foolishness,—the fellow said he was leaving—probably only a ruse, but it must be seen to that he did leave both Bologna and Italy; she had seen the name of the inn heading the letter Francis had written, she would have the place watched, and if he lingered in the city her plans were ready; she was a power in Bologna.

This resolve brought her sudden comfort. She banished the dismal forebodings that had arisen (for her finest, truest feelings were bound up in her children, and she would have given her life to have saved either of them from a spoilt career or failure, as she imagined failure), that Giovanna was madly rushing on destruction.

With her air of the great lady, the coquette and the woman of the world, she crossed to the slim, silent figure of her daughter and kissed her on the forehead—tall as Giovanna appeared, her mother was taller.

The girl did not speak and made no response; Vittoria gave her an anxious look, then smiled brilliantly, as she reflected that she who had been equal to the college of Cardinals and the Pope himself, was not likely to find much difficulty in dealing with a simple girl out of a convent—she pictured Giovanna soon mistress of a Roman or Florentine palace, and the Scotchman soon enclosed in the grey fogs of his impossible island.

Picking up her armoury of weapons, the fan, the mask, the lace shawl, the Contessa left the room to join the aristocratic company who were already assembled on the benches outside the palace.

But Giovanna remained in her room, in untidy undress, seated before the dressing-table and staring with red eyes at her wretched reflection in the glass.

She considered dismally that by her impulsive confidences to her mother she had made her case worse; she knew that she would be watched now as the young wives of the nobles who thronged the Palazzo Odaleschi were watched.

She had meant to find the friend of Mr. Moutray, but he too had disappeared, and now there was little chance of her meeting him.

And to-night he might be leaving Bologna; she shivered to the soul as she pictured him riding away, and sought desperately for the cause of this flight.

He loved her, of that she was sure; she did not come of a race of women schooled to be diffident or shy. Love, religion, and politics were the three interests of her world, and love came first with most, certainly with those who frequented her mother's salons, and she felt neither shame nor wonder at her own feelings, nor at her expression of them, but his attitude, the contradiction with the lips of what the eyes told her, this reluctant flight—these were beyond her comprehension.

She could only think of two explanations, either he was married (not a very potent reason in her eyes), or it was religion keeping them apart.

This last obstacle she did tremble before; she felt the barrier it was between them, the awful position of a heretic; she knew the impossibility of a union with one, and already felt herself cowering before the wrath of an outraged Church—the Church that condoned everything but apostasy.

She recalled his scornful gesture, his scornful words, evoked by the sight of the crucifix hanging at her bosom, and fresh tears of agony began to sting her tired eyes.

She saw the huge, yawning chasm between them. She was not stupid, and she pictured clearly enough the differences between their Gods, their countries, their outlook, and their positions; yet it seemed to her, in the generous strength of her swift passion, that all these obstacles could be lightly swept away; it was bitter to consider that he did not find it so easy on his side.

With an unsteady hand she poured some Hungary water over her handkerchief and held it to her throbbing, aching head.

She pressed the wet cambric over her closed lids, and pictured him as she had seen him that morning in his light travelling cloak with his hat pressed to his heart, his dark eyes shadowed, his features wan and fatigued—looking at her, moving reluctantly away.

She had his portrait by heart: she knew every wave in his soft hair—she remembered the pattern of the lace of his cravat, the make of the tassels on his sword hilt, the red silk roses on the flourishing of his waistcoat—all these trivial details that were important because they helped to form the picture of him ...

When the Contessa Emilia entered in swaying white silk hoops with pink rosettes and high-heeled mules buckled in gold—Emilia, perfumed, powdered, and smiling—she hardly recognized her sister in the dishevelled, tragic figure at the dressing-table.

"I am not coming to the casini," said Giovanna, rising and facing her sister.

Emilia stared, shrugged, laughed, and went away to her amusements; Giovanna pulled the crucifix from her bosom and, resting her elbows among the combs, ornaments, and complexion washes, pressed the holy symbol to her dry lips.