CHAPTER XVII
A thaw had followed the long frost and from the South, on eager feet, came Primavera, hooded still but clasping pale buds to her breast.
Birds sang as she glided by, anemones peered through the grass and in the olive trees young leaves danced in the sun like silver coins, tossed up by gay Mother Earth as ransom to the pirate Winter.
Light poured down from the sapphire sky, gilding the ivory city of towers as McTaggart drove through the winding roads, the Marchesa, still muffled in furs, beside him.
They had been to the borders of his estate, by vineyards planted on the slopes in terraces like a giant staircase, screened from the north by dark lines of cypresses, warped with the cruel wind; past fields of oranges and lemons, covered with screens of plaited reeds, to the agent's house where they had lunched and tasted later the olive oil, smooth and sweet, stored in huge jars, suggesting those of the "Forty Thieves."
Now they were returning home, drowsy from the long day spent in the open air, happily tired, soothed by the motion of the carriage.
A mischievous breeze played with the veil the Marchesa wore, of heavy crape, and every now and then McTaggart could catch a glimpse of her rounded chin and that flower-like mouth beneath the folds, vivid, alive and tantalizing.
He watched for it, lazily, leaning back against the high, padded cushions, and, conscious suddenly of his gaze, she turned her head and broke the silence.
"You are quite decided then, Pietro?" Her voice was sweetly disconsolate. "You will not come with me to Fiesole?"
"I can't, really. I'm very sorry. I must be getting back to England"—a faint smile curved his lips. "I've important business there just now. I assure you I'd stay if I could."
His aunt laughed, a trifle sharply.
"That means a woman, I should say!—'Important business'—at your age. There never yet was a Maramonte who was happy unless he was playing with fire."
Her dark eyes flashed through her veil an inquisitive glance, but he shook his head. He was not in a mood for confidences. Moreover, he knew that Cydonia's birth would hardly fulfil his aunt's requirements and dreaded a possible catechism.
"It's your sister's villa, near Florence, where you are going, isn't it?"
The Marchesa nodded lazily.
"And beautiful..." she stirred herself—"it faces the Arno valley with a wide loggia due south. She's my eldest sister—I was the baby—and her daughter, Bianca, must be sixteen. There's no son—such a grief! My brother-in-law breaks his heart about it. He is a Florentine himself, with an old palazzo (now shut up) and some fine pictures near the Cascine."
"You will be happy there?" asked Peter.
"But, yes!" She shrugged her shoulders lightly. "For a time, until my mourning's over. It's a quiet spot, Fiesole, and I am very attached to my sister. Then I shall go to live in Rome."
"And your life begins?" He guessed her thought.
"Chi lo sa?" But her eyes were bright. "At any rate, it's farewell to Siena! In Rome one can live as one likes."
"May I come and see you there?"
Impulsively she turned to him.
"Mais je crois bien!—For as long as you can. I shall be proud of my handsome nephew. And then, caro mio, I will find you a wife." She nodded her head with an air of wisdom.
"Some beautiful Roman. Let me think ... There is Princess Doria's only girl—the Principe was my mother's cousin—and Donna Maria Archiveschi...? Well—we shall choose, you and I."
A sudden thought sprang into her brain. Why not Bianca?—her sister's child. What an excellent match it would be for her—as soon as she should leave the convent.
Moreover, it would suit the Marchesa. She would have a double right of entry in the Maramonte family circle and indulge to the full her love of intrigue.
Following up this train of thought, she smiled sweetly at McTaggart.
"You could not spare me one week now?—a little week before you return ...? At Fiesole—just think again. To abandon your poor aunt at once—one sees you do not care for her! ... Just seven days, Pietro mio, to leave me happily settled there?"
She drew back her veil and her velvet eyes, like darkest pansies, pleaded mutely. McTaggart summoned all his strength, conjuring up Cydonia.
"Please don't make it any harder! I'd love to come, you know that. It's not every day in one's life one ... inherits such a perfect aunt!"
He smiled at her with real affection.
"I'll come back when you're at Rome—(and not alone!" he said to himself). "But I'm bound to return to England first and settle up my business there."
"You talk as if you kept a shop!" She shrugged her shoulders pettishly. "What does the Marquis Maramonte want with commissions on the 'Bourse'?"
He laughed outright with the memory of her disgusted, lovely face when he had told her of his profession.
"Fi donc!" Mischievous, she shook a slender finger at him. "It would make poor Gino turn in his grave."
"And serve him right!" was McTaggart's thought. He could not forgive the dead man for his heartless treatment of his sister. He had the Italian's centuries-deep love of justice and liberty and was not without a strain of revenge, the lingering trace of some far-off "Vendetta."
He sat there moody, his mouth hard; grimly glad that the scales of fate had weighed in favour of his rise into the power denied to her.
The sun, sinking toward the hills, plunged the city walls in shadow as they drove through the Porta Romana and past the great church of the Servites.
Then, winding round the ancient market, they emerged into the open "Campo"—that curious shell-shaped piazza where throbs the heart of old Siena.
"What is that tower?" McTaggart pointed. "I can see it from my bedroom window."
"The Torre del Mangia," his aunt replied, "above the palace of the Commune. You must see the frescoes in the Chapel, by Bazzi—pure quattro cento. And there is the famous Fonte Gaia—after Giacomo della Quercia. The original fragments are in the museum. That is a copy—but still fine. This Square is where 'il Palio' is run, the two occasions in the year when Siena awakes to life——" she smiled scornfully as she spoke.
"Dio!—I shall be glad to go—it is a city of the dead. And cold...!" She shivered and drew her furs closer, aware of the sunset hour.
They came at last into the palace. Beppo received them in the hall with letters for his young master. McTaggart eagerly gathered them up.
"Bring 'sweet wine' into the boudoir," said the Marchesa to the servant. She turned to her nephew. "It's warmer there. I will join you when I get rid of my furs."
But McTaggart went to his room first, anxious to find if the letters held any news of Cydonia, and, locking the door, sat down by his stove.
There were three of them, sent on from his club. A line from Bethune, a tailor's bill and an envelope in a clerkly hand. He tore it open carelessly.
Then, quickly, he turned it over, glanced at the signature, set his teeth; and his face flushed with growing anger as he went through the contents again.
It was signed "Ebenezer Cadell," and contained a narrow unfastened note.
He read that too, then leaned back and swore aloud in his bitter chagrin.
Never in all his wildest dreams had he pictured himself a jilted man! Yet here it was—he smiled sourly—Cydonia had thrown him over!
Cydonia—the woman he loved. The girl for whom, in his loyalty, he had sworn to sacrifice the pride of his ancient and historic name.
She had "made a mistake." He read it again, holding to the light of the stove the mauve paper with the monogram "C" engraved in a fantastic wreath.
She was "too young"—as her "parents said"—"to think of marriage for some years." She hoped "Peter would understand"—and "not feel very hurt!" She would "like to keep him as a friend."
("I'll be damned if she will!"—said the angry man.)
Her Mother had been "quite ill" again, upset by their "secrecy."
("Dash it all!" In the midst of his pain McTaggart smiled. "She can't expect a proposal in public—whatever is she driving at?")
Cydonia hoped he would not write. "Father" thought it better not. She was "VERY sorry." For the first time the careful writing shook a little. A line crossed through revealed the fact that she would "miss him dreadfully."
But she thought her parents "knew best." They had been "very kind" to her—and "Father was writing to explain."
This statement was distinctly true. For Cadell rubbed salt into the sore!
McTaggart turned once more to his letter.
To begin with it was plain he mistrusted McTaggart's unforeseen departure; only too evident that he thought this foreign trip a way of escape from the outcome of an evening's folly!
But, in any case, whether or no his intentions toward Cydonia were honorable and uninvolved by any "pecuniary consideration," McTaggart stood no earthly chance of success as his son-in-law.
Cydonia was destined to higher flights ... (McTaggart thought of Bethune's words: "Some young ass with a title and debts!")
She would inherit a large fortune and her beauty and costly education "would fit her for any position."
"She's almost worthy," McTaggart sneered, "to become the Marchesa Maramonte."
For anger was still dominant. The lonely longing was to follow.
The letter, pompous, devoid of tact, went on to a definite prohibition. Cadell closed the door of his house in the face of the undesirable suitor. A note of spite rang out sharp in the older man's reference to his daughter's note. "The enclosure will make the matter clear."
It did. McTaggart leaned down and pushed both letters into the stove, watching the flames rise high, turning love into ashes.
Long he sat there, his chin on his hands, his blue eyes staring into space. The clock ticked on noisily, marking the death of more than Time. Broken ideals, vanished dreams ... enthusiasm, loyalty; wasted at an unworthy shrine—his mind veered round at last to Fantine.
Women were all alike, it seemed. Creatures of impulse, without honour...
There came a knock at his bedroom door—a message from the Marchesa.
He rose to his feet with a curious smile. The French maid was waiting outside.
McTaggart, pointing to Bethune's letter, explained that business of importance required an immediate answer. He would be with her mistress shortly—the time to write a hurried line...
He paused as the girl raised her eyes and, in the darkness of the passage, slipping an arm round her waist, he stole a kiss from her fresh mouth, amused at the maid's swift surrender.
Then he passed her and went downstairs. "That's the only way to treat them!" he said to himself, with no sense of pleasure, but a perverse, cold disgust.
In the hall he sat down, drew out a sheet of black-edged paper with a coronet engraved upon it and wrote forthwith to Cadell.
He abided by the parent's decision ... Cydonia was, indeed, young ... He wished, however, to make it clear that his departure for Italy had been, by its nature, unavoidable.
His uncle and his cousins were dead. He gave them their full sonorous titles. And, as heir to their fortune and estates, his presence had been imperative.
A faint flicker of malice passed over his mouth as he wrote the phrase and pictured the recipient's eyes starting out of his red face.
Mr. Cadell could rest assured that never again would McTaggart trespass across the threshold of his house ... He thanked him for past hospitality.
Then he signed it, read it through, folded it neatly and enclosed it.
Before him lay a bunch of seals and a long stick of black wax. He lit the taper and, smiling slightly, gathered up the largest of these on which were the Maramonte arms surmounted by a coronet.
He pressed it down heavily onto the liquid splash of wax.
"It's snobbish"—his lips curled—"but I know Cadell—it will make him squirm!"
He rang and handed the letter to Beppo. "For the post—presto!"—and walked upstairs. "May I come in?" He opened the door of his Aunt's boudoir, his eyes bright with the pain his smiling mouth concealed.
"Ah, mon cher, how late you are!" It might have been Fantine—he said to himself. But there he misjudged his aunt.
There were only, really, two sorts of women—his bitter reasoning went on—the innocent and stupid and weak: and the strong ones, clever and corrupt.
"Sit down and have some wine." From her seat in the low "bergère" she held out an inviting hand. "Dio! how cold you are!"
For his fingers were icy, his brain hot.
"Never with you, ma chère tante—Impossible." He bent his head to kiss her fragrant slender wrist—then changed his mind as he caught a glance from the dark eyes full of coquetry.
For the first time he took advantage of the new relationship, but without pleasure, merely an outward symbol of the queer recklessness he felt.
"My business is settled. Are you glad? I'm coming with you to Fiesole."
She offered him her other cheek with the frank gaiety of a child.
"Tu vois!" She laughed merrily. "But, indeed, I am charmed. And my sister, too—she will be glad to welcome you." Her face sobered on the words. She poured him out a glass of wine, watching his smile fade away. He looked pale and strained now. Shrewdly she probed his change of mood.
"That 'business'——" she said to herself. "I was right—a woman!—I wonder where? The boy's wounded—one sees that—let's hope it's only a passing fancy. All the better for my plan ... at no time is a man so weak as after a lover's quarrel. But now—one must move cautiously. I shall wire to Fiesole to-night—Bianca must leave the Convent. It would be wise to find her there—a surprise to us both." She glanced at the clock. Then, in her soft, musical voice, she went on with her speech.
"You will not find it dull, I hope? With my mourning, you understand, we shall live very quietly. Just you and I and my sister there—and my brother-in-law, en famille."
"I shall like that," he spoke sincerely. "I'm rather tired of London life—a little rest will do me good. It's so nice of you to wish to have me."
He sipped the glass of sweet liqueur he held with a sudden secret craving for a good strong brandy and soda to steady his quivering nerves.
For the reaction was coming on. Beneath his armour of wounded pride a sense of loss was stabbing him.
He did not close his eyes that night.