CHAPTER VI
THE OLD LADY OF MARBLE
The door was opened a little way, very, very softly; the maid looked in, and called to Franco, who was absorbed in prayer, kneeling by a chair near the couch upon which the dead woman lay. Franco did not hear, and it was Luisa who rose. She went to listen to the woman's whispered request, said something in reply, and when the maid had withdrawn, stood waiting for some one. As no one appeared she pushed the door open and said aloud: "Come in, come in." A great sob answered her. Luisa stretched out both hands and Professor Gilardoni seized them. They stood some time thus, motionless, fighting their sorrow with tightly pressed lips, he more shaken than she. Luisa was the first to move. She gently withdrew one hand, and, with the other, led the Professor into the chamber of death.
Signora Teresa had passed away in the drawing-room in the armchair from which she had never been able to rise after the night of the wedding. They had made the sofa into a funeral couch, and laid her out upon it. The sweet face rested there on the pillow, showing waxen in the light of the four candles, the lips were slightly parted, and it was as if a smile shone through the closed eyelids. The couch and the clothes were strewn with autumn flowers; cyclamen, dahlias and chrysanthemums. "See how beautiful she is," said Luisa, in a tender, quiet tone that went to the heart. The Professor stood leaning upon a chair at some distance from the bed.
"Do you realise it, Mamma," Luisa said softly, "how much you are beloved?"
She knelt down, and taking one of the dead hands, began kissing it, caressing it, and murmuring sweet words over it in a low voice; then she was silent, and, replacing the hand, she rose, kissed the brow and contemplated the face with clasped hands. She recalled her mother's reproofs in past years, remembering every one since her childhood, for she had always felt them deeply. Once more she fell upon her knees, and pressed her lips to the icy hand with an impulse of affection more ardent than if she had been dwelling upon past caresses. Then taking a cyclamen from her mother's shoulder, she rose and offered it to the Professor. He took it, weeping, and going to Franco, whom he now met for the first time since that night, he embraced him with silent emotion, and felt his embrace returned. Then, stepping very softly, he left the room.
It was striking eight o'clock. Signora Teresa had died the night before at six; in twenty-six hours Luisa had never rested for a moment, and had left the room only four or five times for a few minutes. Franco it was who often went out, and remained away a long time.
Summoned in secret he had reached Castello just in time to see the poor mother alive, and it had fallen to his lot to perform all the sad offices which death imposes, for Uncle Piero, in spite of his years, had not the slightest knowledge of these matters, and was greatly bewildered by them.
Now, hearing it strike eight, he went to his wife and gently urged her to take a little rest, but Luisa answered him at once in a way that put an end to his insistence. The funeral was to take place the next morning at nine o'clock. She had wished it to be postponed for as long as possible, and intended to remain with her mother to the last. In her slim person there was an indomitable vigour capable of withstanding still greater trials. For her, her mother was there still, on that narrow couch, among the flowers. She did not think that a part of her was elsewhere, did not look out of the west window, seeking her among the tiny stars that trembled above the hills of Carona. Her one thought was that in a few hours, the darling mother, who had lived so many years for her alone, caring for naught else on earth save her happiness, would be laid away to sleep for ever under the great walnut-trees of Looch, in the shadowy solitude where the little cemetery of Castello rests in silence, while she herself would continue to enjoy life, the sun, and love. She had answered Franco almost sharply as if, in some way, affection for the living were an offence to the affection for the dead. Then, fearing she had hurt him, she repented, kissed him and endeavoured to pray, knowing that in this she would be pleasing him, and that certainly her mother would have expected this of her. She began reciting the Pater, the Ave and the Requiem over and over again, but without deriving the slightest comfort from them, experiencing, rather, a secret irritation, an unwelcome drying up of her grief. She had always practised religion, but, after the ardour of her first Communion had died out, her soul had ceased to be associated in religious observance. Her mother had lived rather for the next world than for this; she had regulated her every action, her every word, her every thought with that end in view. In her precocious intellectual development, Luisa's ideas and sentiments had taken another direction, with that determined vigour which was one of her characteristics. She covered these views, however, with certain half-conscious, half-unconscious dissimulations, partly for love of her mother, partly because some germ of religion, sown by maternal precepts, fostered by example, and strengthened by habit, had not died out. Since her fourteenth year she had been growing ever more inclined to look beyond this present life, and at the same time not to consider herself; to live for others, for the earthly good of others, but always, however, according to a strong and fierce sense of justice. She went to church, performed the external duties of her religion, without incredulity, but also without the conviction that they were pleasing to God. She had a confused conception of a God so great, so lofty, that no immediate contact was possible between Him and mankind. Sometimes, indeed, she feared she might be mistaken, but her possible error seemed to her of a nature such as no God of infinite goodness might punish. She herself did not know how she had come to think thus.
The door opened very softly once more, and a low voice called, "Signor Don Franco." When Luisa was alone she ceased to pray, and resting her head upon her mother's pillow, she pressed her lips to the dear shoulder, closed her eyes and let the flood of memories flow over her that sprung from that touch, from that familiar odour of lavender. Her mother's dress was of silk, her best, and had been a present from Uncle Piero. She had worn it only once, some years before, on the occasion of a visit to the Marchesa Marioni. The odour of the lavender brought back this memory also, and with it came scalding tears, acrid with tenderness and with another sentiment that was not actually hatred, that was not actually anger, but that held the bitterness of both.