IV
Anna Mantegazza knocked and entered just as Lavinia had finished with her hair and was slipping into the familiar white dress. There had been, within the last few hours, a perceptible change in the former's attitude toward her. Lavinia realized that Anna Mantegazza regarded her with a new interest, a greater and more personal friendliness.
“My dear Lavinia!” she exclaimed, critically overlooking the other's preparations. “You look very appealing—like a snowdrop; exactly. I should say the toilet for Sunday at the convent; but no longer appropriate outside. Really, I must speak to the marchesa—parents are so slow to see the differences in their own family. Gheta has been a little overemphasized.
“I wonder,” she continued with glowing vivacity, “if you would allow me—I assure you it would give me the greatest pleasure in the world.... Your figure is a thousand times better than mine; but, thank heaven, I'm still slender.... A little evening dress from Vienna! It should really do you very well. Will you accept it from me? I'd like to give you something, Lavinia; and it has never been out of its box.”
She turned and was out of the room before Lavinia could reply. There was no reason why she shouldn't take a present from Anna—Pier Mantegazza and her father had been lifelong friends, and his wife was an intimate of the Sanvianos. It would not, probably, be black. It wasn't. Anna returned, followed by her maid, who bore carefully over her arm a shimmering mass of glowing pink.
“Now!” Anna Mantegazza cried. “Your hair is very pretty, very original—but hardly for a dress by Verlat. Sara!”
The maid moved quietly forward and directed an appraising gaze at Lavinia. She was a flat-hipped Englishwoman, with a cleft chin and enigmatic greenish eyes. “I see exactly, madame,” she assured Anna; and with her deft dry hands she took down Lavinia's laboriously arranged hair.
She drew it back from the brow apparently as simply as before, twisted it into a low knot slightly eccentric in shape, and recut a bang. Lavinia's eyes seemed bluer, her delicate flush more elusive; the shape of her face appeared changed, it was more pointed and had a new willful charm.
“The stockings,” Anna commanded.
Dressed, Lavinia Sanviano stood curiously before the long mirror; she saw a fresh Lavinia that was yet the old; and she was absorbing her first great lesson in the magic of clothes. Verlat, a celebrated dressmaker, was typical of the Viennese spirit—the gown Lavinia wore resembled, in all its implications, an orchid. There was a whisper here of satin, a pale note of green, a promise of chiffon. Her crisp round shoulders were bare; her finely molded arms were clouded, as it were, with a pink mist; the skirt was full, incredibly airy; yet every movement was draped by a suave flowing and swaying.
Lavinia recognized that she had been immensely enriched in effect; it was not a question of mere beauty—beauty here gave way to a more subtle and potent consideration. It was a potency which she instinctively shrank from probing. For a moment she experienced, curiously enough, a gust of passionate resentment, followed by a quickly passing melancholy, a faint regret.
Anna Mantegazza and the maid radiated with satisfaction at the result of their efforts. The former murmured a phrase that bore Gheta's name, but Lavinia caught nothing else. The maid said:
“Without a doubt, madame.”
Lavinia lingered in her room, strangely reluctant to go down and see her sister. She was embarrassed by her unusual appearance and dreaded the prominence of the inevitable exclamations. At last she was obliged to proceed. The rest stood by the entrance of the dining room. Anna Mantegazza was laughing at a puzzled expression on the good-natured countenance of Cesare Orsi; Gheta was slowly waving a fan of gilded feathers; Abrego y Mochales was standing rigid and somberly handsome; and, as usual, Pier Mantegazza was late.
Gheta Sanviano turned and saw Lavinia approaching, and the elder's face, always pale, grew suddenly chalky; it was drawn, and the wrinkles, carefully treated with paste, became visible about her eyes. Her hands shook a little as she took a step forward.
“What does this mean, Lavinia?” she demanded. “Why did I know nothing about that dress?”
“I knew nothing myself until a little bit ago,” Lavinia explained apologetically, filled with a formless pity for Gheta. “Isn't it pretty? Anna Mantegazza gave it to me.”
She could see, over Gheta's shoulder, Cesare Orsi staring at her in idiotic surprise.
“Don't you like it, Gheta?” Anna asked.
Gheta Sanviano didn't answer, but closed her eyes for a moment in an effort to control the anger that shone in them. The silence deepened to constraint, and then she laughed lightly.
“Quite a woman of fashion!” she observed of Lavinia. “Fancy! It's a pity that she must go back to the convent so soon.”
Her eyes while she was speaking were directed toward Anna Mantegazza and the resentment changed to hatred. The other shrugged her shoulders indifferently and moved toward the dining room, catching Lavinia's arm in her own.
Mantegazza entered at the soup and was seated on Gheta's right; Cesare Orsi was on Anna's left; and Lavinia sat between the two men, with Mochales opposite. Whatever change had taken place in her looks made absolutely no impression upon the latter; it was clear that he saw no one besides Gheta Sanviano.
In the candlelight his face more than ever resembled bronze; his hair was dead-black; above the white linen his head was like a superb effigy of an earlier and different race from the others. It was almost savage in its still austerity. Cesare Orsi, too, said little, which was extraordinary for him. If Lavinia had made small mark on Mochales, at least she had overpowered the other to a ludicrous degree. It seemed that he had never before half observed her; he even muttered to himself and smiled uncertainly when she chanced to gaze at him.
But what the others lacked conversationally Anna Mantegazza more than supplied; she was at her best, and that was very sparkling, touched with malice and understanding, and absolute independence. She insisted on including Lavinia in every issue. At first Lavinia was only confused by the attention pressed on her; she retreated, growing more inarticulate at every sally. Then she became easier; spurred partly by Gheta's direct unpleasantness and partly by the consciousness of her becoming appearance, she retorted with spirit; engaged Pier Mantegazza in a duet of verbal confetti. She gazed challengingly at Abrego y Mochales, but got no other answer than a grave perfunctory inclination.
She thought of an alternative to the black gowns and unrelieved melancholy—she might become the gayest member of the gay Roman world, be known throughout Italy for her reckless exploits, her affairs and Vienna gowns, all the while hiding her passion for the Flower of Spain. It would be a vain search for forgetfulness, with an early death in an atmosphere of roses and champagne. Gheta was gazing at her so crossly that she took a sip of Mantegazza's brandy; it burned her throat cruelly, but she concealed the choking with a smile of high bravado.
After dinner they progressed to a drawing-room that filled an entire end of the villa; it lay three steps below the hall, the imposing walls and floor covered with tapestries and richly dark rugs. Lavinia more than ever resembled an orchid, here in a gloom of towering trees curiously suggested by the draperies and space. She went forward with Anna Mantegazza to an amber blur of lamplight, the others following irregularly.
Cesare Orsi sat at Lavinia's side, quickly finishing one long black cigar and lighting another; Pier Mantegazza and Mochales smoked cigarettes. Anna was smoking, but Gheta had refused. Lavinia's feeling for her sister had changed from pity to total indifference. The elder had been an overbearing and thoughtless superior; and now, when Lavinia felt in some subtle inexplicable manner that Gheta was losing rank, her store of sympathy was small. Lavinia hoped that she would marry Orsi immediately and leave the field free for herself. She wondered whether her father would buy her a dress by Verlat.
“Honestly,” Orsi murmured, “more beautiful than your—”
She stopped him with an impatient gesture, wondering what Mochales was saying to Gheta. A possibility suddenly filled her with dread—it was evident that the Spaniard was growing hourly more absorbed in Gheta, and the latter might——Lavinia could not support the possibility of Abrego y Mochales married to her sister. But, she reassured herself, there was little danger of that—Gheta would never make a sacrifice for emotion; she would be sure of the comfortable material thing, and now more than ever.
Anna Mantegazza moved to a piano, which, in the obscurity, she began to play. The notes rose deliberate and melodious. Gheta Sanviano told Orsi:
“That's Iris. Do you remember, we heard it at the Pergola in the winter?”
“Do go over to her,” Lavinia whispered.
He rose heavily and went to Gheta's side, and Lavinia waited expectantly for Mochales to change too. The Spaniard shifted, but it was toward the piano, where he stood with the rosy reflection of his cigarette on a moody countenance. It was Pier Mantegazza who sat beside her, with a quizzical expression on his long gray visage. He said something to her in Latin, which she only partly understood, but which alluded to the changing of water into wine.
“I am a subject of jest,” he continued in Italian, “because I prefer water.”
She smiled with polite vacuity, wondering what he meant.
“You always satisfied me, Lavinia, with your dark smooth plait and white simplicity; you were cool and refreshing. Now they have made you only disturbing. I suppose it was inevitable, and with you the change will be temporary.”
“I'll never let my hair down again,” she retorted. “I've settled that with Gheta. Mother didn't care, really.”
She was annoyed by the implied criticism, his entire lack of response to her new being. He had grown blind staring at his stupid old coins.
A step sounded behind her; she turned hopefully, but it was only Cesare Orsi.
“The others have gone outside,” he told her, and she noticed that the piano had stopped.
Mantegazza rose and bowed in mock serious formality, at which Lavinia shrugged an impatient shoulder and walked with Orsi across the room and out upon the terrace.
Florence had sunk into a dark chasm of night, except for the curving double row of lights that marked the Lungarno and the indifferent illumination of a few principal squares. The stars seemed big and near in deep blue space. Orsi was standing very close to her, and she moved away; but he followed.
“Lavinia,” he muttered, and suddenly his arm was about her waist.
She leaned back, pushing with both hands against his chest; but he swept her irresistibly up to him and kissed her clumsily. A cold rage possessed her. She stopped struggling; yet there was no need to continue—he released her immediately and opened a stammering apology.
“I am a madman,” he admitted abjectly—“a little animal that ought to be shot. I don't know what came over me; my head was in a carnival. You must forgive or I shall be a maniac, I——”
She turned and walked swiftly into the house and mounted to her room. All the pleasure she had had in the evening, the Viennese gown, evaporated, left her possessed by an utter loathing of self. Now, in the mirror, she seemed hateful, the clouded chiffon and airy clinging satin unspeakable. Looking back out of the dim glass was a stranger who had betrayed and cheapened her. Her pure serenity revolted against the currents of life sweeping down upon her, threatening to inundate her.
She unhooked the Verlat gown with trembling fingers and—once more in simple white—dropped into a deep chair, where she cried with short painful inspirations, her face pressed against her arm. Her emotion subsided, changed to a formless dread, and again to a black sense of helplessness. Suddenly she rose and mechanically shook loose her hair—footsteps were approaching. Her sister entered, pale and vindictive.
“You are to be congratulated,” she proceeded thinly; “you made a success with everybody—that is, with all but Mochales. It was for him, wasn't it? You were very clever, but you failed ridiculously.”
Lavinia made no reply.
“I hope Mochales excuses you because of your greenness.”
“Youth isn't any longer your crime,” Lavinia retorted at last.
“That dress—it would suit Anna Mantegazza; but you looked only indecent.”
“Perhaps you're right, Gheta,” Lavinia said unexpectedly. “I'm going to bed now, please.”
Her balance, restored by sleep, was once more normal when she returned to the Lungarno. It was again late afternoon, the daily procession was returning from the Cascine, and Gheta was at the window, looking coldly down. The Marchesa Sanviano was knitting at prodigious speed a shapeless gray garment. They all turned when a servant entered:
Signer Orsi wished to see the marchese.
This unusual formality on the part of Cesare Orsi could have but one purpose, and Lavinia and their mother gazed significantly at the elder sister.
“The marchese is dressing,” his wife directed.
She drew a long breath of relief and nodded over her needles. Gheta raised her chin; her lips bore the half-contemptuous expression that lately had become habitual; her eyes were half closed.
Lavinia sat with her hands loose in her lap. She was wondering whether or not, should she make a vigorous protest, they would send her back to the convent. The Verlat gown was carefully hung in her closet. Last night she had been idiotic.
The Marchese Sanviano appeared hurriedly and alone; his tie was crooked and his expression very much disturbed. His wife looked up, startled.
“What!” she demanded directly. “Didn't he——”
“Yes,” Sanviano replied, “he did! He wants to marry Lavinia.”
Lavinia half rose, with a horrified protest; Gheta seemed suddenly turned to stone; the knitting fell unheeded from the marchesa's lap. Sanviano spread out his hands helplessly.
“Well,” he demanded, “what could I do?... A man with Orsi's blameless character and the Orsi banks!”