A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

CHAPTER XII

The day had come, and Maria was waiting alone for her husband in one of the great rooms of the Palazzo Montalto. She had told Leone that she would send for him when he was wanted, and he was thoughtfully consoling himself for not being allowed to stay with her by polishing the barrel of his tin rifle with his tooth-brush and tooth powder, and he had the double satisfaction of seeing the gun shine beautifully and of making the hated instrument useless for its proper purpose. And meanwhile he wondered what his papa would be like, and whether he should always hate him.

But Maria walked restlessly up and down the drawing-room, and her head felt a little light. Now and then she stopped near one of the open windows and listened for the sound of wheels below and looked at her watch; and when she saw that it was still early, she breathed more freely at first and sat down, trying to rest and collect herself; but it was like thinking of resting ten minutes before execution, and she rose almost directly and began to walk again.

In her deep mourning she looked smaller and slighter in the great room than in the simpler surroundings she had left. She had indeed grown a little thinner of late, but she was not ill, nor even as tired as she had expected to be at the crucial moment. The people who feel most are not those whose nerves go to pieces in trouble, and who get absolute rest then by the doctor’s orders; they are more often those who are condemned to bear much, for the very reason that they cannot break down. In the age of torture the weak fainted or died and felt no more, but the strong were conscious and suffered to the end, and that was very long in coming. Yet no one ever pities the strong people.

Leone had told his mother that the white patch in her hair near her left temple had grown so much larger of late that three of his fingers only just covered it, and he had kindly offered to ink it for her; and she was somewhat thinner and a little paler than she had been a month earlier. But that was all there was to show that she had lived through weeks of distress. Montalto would scarcely notice the white lock at first, and her figure looked a shade more perfect for being slighter. She had never been a beauty, but she had more grace and charm than ever, and she was only seven-and-twenty. Giuliana Parenzo was much handsomer, but few men would have hesitated between her and Maria, who had that nameless something in every easy movement, in every lingering smile, in each soft tone of her warm voice, that wakes the man in men, as early spring stirs the life in the earth, deep down and out of sight. She did not understand what she had, and for years she had lived so much away from the lighter side of her own world that she had almost forgotten how the men used to gather round her and crowd upon each other instinctively to come nearer to her in the first year of her marriage, as they never did for Giuliana. She used to notice it then, and she had a laugh and a quick answer for each that showed no preference for any, and maddened them all till they were almost ready to quarrel with each other; but she had been very young then, and she had not understood, till one more reckless than the rest, the very one she trusted too much because she loved him only and too well, had laid waste for ever her fair young being, half-wrecked his own life, and broken the heart of an honest man.

And this honest man had forgiven her, for love of her; he too, and he more than any, had felt that her smile, and her breath, and her touch could drive him mad; and now that he was coming back, the minutes were passing quickly—a very few were left—still fewer—the last but one—the very last, as she heard his carriage roll in through the great arched entrance almost directly under her feet.

The doors were open beyond the drawing-room towards the ante-chamber; one door only was shut between that and the outer hall where the butler and footmen in deep mourning were waiting for their master.

She heard it opened, a once familiar voice asked in a formal tone where she was, and a servant answered. Then came the well-remembered step. In the painful tension of her hearing she heard it far away, even on the soft carpet, more clearly than she had ever heard it on tiled floor or marble pavement.