A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

Maria’s heart beat fast, and she smiled as she thought of Giuliana’s expressed determination to ‘save her in spite of herself.’ It was morning, and she went out alone for a walk. It was good to live to-day, and to move swiftly through the bright spring air was to be twice alive. She went by the cross streets to the Via del Veneto and through the Porta Pinciana to the Villa Borghese. She skirted the racecourse below the Dairy, and stood still a moment to watch the riders go by. Not far from her she saw Angelica Campodonico and her young brother Mario riding on each side of their teacher. The slim young girl sat straight and square and was enjoying herself, but the boy grabbed the pommel of his saddle whenever the riding-master looked away, and seemed to stick on by his heels. He was the boy whom Leone had ‘hammered,’ as he expressed it, and Maria smiled as she thought of her own little son’s sturdy back and small, hard fists.

Presently a young lieutenant of the Piedmont Lancers cantered up on a beautiful English mare. He rode very well, as many Italian officers now do, and he was evidently aware of it. The familiar uniform fascinated Maria, and her eyes lingered on it as the young man rode past her. He saw that she was a woman of the world, and that she was still young and pretty; and in spite of the deep black she wore, it at once occurred to him that this was the best place in the wide ring for jumping his mare in and out of the meadow over the rather stiff fence. Still Maria watched him, and he might not have been so pleased with himself if he could have guessed that she was thinking of another officer who was an even better rider than he, but who would certainly not have cared to show off before a pretty lady whom he did not know. And Maria knew that before long Baldassare del Castiglione would sometimes come and exercise his horses in the same place, and that she would very probably happen to be walking that way and would see him. And he would stop and salute her, and draw up by the outer fence and shake hands with her and exchange a few words; and his eyes would be as blue as sapphires, and she would be the proudest woman in the world, almost without knowing it. So she unconsciously smiled at the young lieutenant and turned away.

She walked on, and before long she was sitting under the ilex-trees above the Piazza di Siena. There was a new bench there; or perhaps it had only been painted. There was water in the fountain, leaping up and sparkling under the deep green trees. The basin had been dry on that winter’s afternoon long ago, and the evergreen oaks had looked much darker. That had been like death; this was life itself. The past did not exist; it had never existed at all, because it had all been a horrible mistake, an untruth, and a loathsome sin; a sin confessed now, an untruth forgiven, a mistake explained and condoned. In the future all was love; and yet all was right and truthful and straightforward, as justice itself. Giuliana’s warning was but the well-meant preaching of a good friend who could never understand; the grim old monk’s words were far away. Where was the deadly risk, or the mortal sin? God was strong and good, and would make all good deeds seem easy; and she and the man she loved would rise far beyond this dying body, by that good, to be united for ever in light and peace. Baldassare would believe, as she did, and in the end they would find heaven together.

She leaned back, and her eyes looked upwards as she sat there alone, and in all her being there was not the least thought that was not innocent and pure and beautiful. She communed with herself as with an angel, and with the image of the man she loved as with a saint. She felt as she felt sometimes when she knelt at early morning before the altar rail of the little oratory near her house, and the young priest with his martyr’s face came softly down and ministered to her.

She almost trembled when she rose at last to leave the place where she had been lifted up from the world, the place where she had once spoken such bitter and cruel words to him who was now once more the heart of her heart and the soul of her soul. She walked homewards in a deep, sweet dream of refreshment.

The footman opened the door, and as she entered the small bright hall she saw a big letter with a black border and Spanish stamps lying upon some others, and she knew Montalto’s large, stiff handwriting. Her heart sank, though she had expected the letter for two days.

She took it with no outward show of emotion, for she felt that the servant was watching and that he guessed whence it came. In a steady voice she asked if Leone had come in from his walk with old Agostino, and the footman told her they were still out. Her Excellency would remember that the Signorino was gone to the gardens of the Palazzo Trasmondo to play with his little friends.

Maria went to her sitting-room without calling her maid, and sat down to read her husband’s letter with closed doors. She felt strong and brave, and resolved to think of the absent man with all the respect Giuliana Parenzo could have exacted from her.

It was a very long letter, filling several big black-edged sheets; but the handwriting was large and stiff, and easy to read, and at first her eyes followed the words quickly and unhesitatingly.