A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

It had been spring when she had left the little apartment, and there had been no fire in any of the rooms. The fireplaces were closed with painted boards, in the Italian way, and she had not wished to excite her servants’ curiosity by taking out the board and burning a quantity of papers on the clean hearth. Burnt paper leaves its unmistakable black ash behind it, and the servants might guess that she had destroyed old love-letters before going back to her husband. Besides, she had thought them innocent then. She had thought that some day she might find comfort in reading them over and recalling the sweetest illusion of her life, the happy and innocent dream of a love grown pure and true in years of waiting and trial. The well-loved writing was dearer to her than she would confess even to herself.

But those letters must be burnt now. She was alone, for Montalto was hardly ever at home at that hour, and Leone was busy at his late afternoon lesson with his tutor, after having been out till nearly sunset. The small fire was burning well, too, and it would be a matter of only two or three minutes to destroy everything; and it must be done at once, while she felt the courage to do it.

She lifted the case out of the drawer and set it on the table before her, turning up the shaded light she used for writing. It was a little old desk that had belonged to her grandmother, made of ebony and inlaid with metal and mother-of-pearl in the happily forgotten taste of the Second Empire. It was of the old sloping shape, made so that when it was opened the upper part turned down in front, continuing the inclined plane to the level of the table, to give enough space for writing; it was one of those primitive attempts at a convenient travelling writing-case which had seemed marvels of ingenuity in those days, and look so hopelessly clumsy to our modern eyes. But Maria’s grandmother had used it for many years, and it had a lock. Everything could be locked in those days, though most of the keys were absurdly simple. Maria looked at it, and remembered that the folding board was covered on the inside with very faded and threadbare purple velvet on which there were three or four inkstains; and when the outer cover was down the upper half of the folding board made a second lid which could be turned down on the first, and there was a little silk tag fastened to it, by which it could be moved. Under this second lid was the body of the desk, a space large enough to contain a good many papers.

Maria sat at the table with the case before her, and her hands upon it. She meant to burn all the letters, except Montalto’s, without reading them. That would be the only way, and it would not take more than two or three minutes; yet she hesitated, though she had already taken the little key from the chain on which she had always carried it.

Might she not at least think for the last time of those dear words? They had been quite innocent. If worse had come to worst she would have shown them even to her husband. They were not eloquent, for Castiglione had small gift for writing. They were not the rough and uncouth love-letters that such a man might have written; for the very essence of the lost dream had been that it was to ignore the earthly love and look forward to the spiritual. He had tried to follow whither she meant to lead, and what he had written was the sincere effort, the pathetically imperfect effort, to see something heavenly through eyes not used to call up the unreal in visions.

She remembered well the awkward wording of his sentences, and the way he had groped at the meaning of what seemed so clear to her. He could understand whatever had to do with honour, with courage, and even with sacrifice, if it were for her sake. But heavenly things were quite beyond him, and even the earthly paradise she had tried to show him seemed very complicated. Yet he would try to make himself comprehend it because all her thoughts were beautiful, and because she had taught him where true honour lay, in honouring her honour, and in kneeling at the shrine of her purity, he, a poor material man.

Her purity! She remembered how the word had looked in his bold handwriting; and though she was alone, the flush of shame rose and burned her cheek, so that she laid the back of her cold hand to the spot to cool it; for her own words were whispered again in her ears.

That echo decided her. There was no time to be lost. It had all been a lie from the day when he had come to her pretty booth at the Kermess. Such dreams were inventions of the devil, and nothing but rank poison. She loved Castiglione more than ever, as woman loves man, fiercely, desperately, very sinfully, very shamefully. That was what her whisper had told him plainly enough. Her cold hands pressed her burning cheeks again, but there was no hesitation left. She was alone, the fire was burning, and surely no one would disturb her during the next five minutes.