A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

It was nearly twelve o’clock when Maria left the palace. She had not realised that it was so late, and she had told the coachman to take her to a dressmaker’s far down the Corso, near the Piazza del Popolo. She was to have tried on a couple of frocks which were necessary to complete her mourning; but the gun-fire from the Janiculus and the clashing of all the church bells told her that it was noon already, and too late, for Leone always had his dinner with her at half-past twelve. She touched Telemaco’s broad black back with the edge of her parasol to call his attention, and she told him to go home instead of stopping at the dressmaker’s.

He asked whether he should pass through the Villa by Porta Pinciana, that being as near a way as any other, and easy for the horses, and she nodded her assent. She had not been in the Villa since the day when she had walked there alone, and had gone home and found Montalto’s letter.

It was a warm spring morning, but the horses trotted briskly up the main avenue that leads in from the gate, glad to be in the pleasant shade. Maria lowered her parasol to the bottom of the phaeton without shutting it, for she knew she should need it again in a few minutes. There was no other carriage in the avenue just then, but several riders were walking their horses slowly towards the gate after exercising them on the course. The first she met were two civilians, and one of them was Oderisio Boccapaduli. He recognised her from a distance, and before he was near enough to bow he glanced quickly behind him, as if he expected to see some one. She did not know the other man. Oderisio took off his hat, and she smiled and nodded. Then came a captain of artillery on a strong Hungarian horse that was evidently in a bad temper and hard to manage. Maria turned her head to watch them after she had passed, but her carriage was going at a smart pace and she soon looked before her again. Not far ahead were two officers of the Piedmont Lancers, walking their horses and talking together.

One was the same young lieutenant who had jumped his English mare in and out of the ring for her benefit on that morning when she had been on foot. She might have met him there any day. The other was Baldassare del Castiglione, and she had not known that he was in Rome.

She was so startled that she made a movement to raise her open parasol and hide her face; but she instantly understood the absurdity of doing such a thing and dropped it again, and looked steadily towards the advancing horsemen, though for a few seconds she could not see them. They were hidden in a fiery mist that rose between her and them. It dissolved suddenly, and Castiglione was gravely saluting her; his face was calm, but his eyes were blazing blue. The young lieutenant raised his hand to his cap almost at the same instant. With infinite difficulty Maria slowly bent her head in answer, but she did not turn her eyes as the two men passed her, and in another moment she had left them behind.

Then she felt that her heart was beating again, for she was sure that it had quite stopped. But at the same instant her hand unconsciously relaxed, and her open parasol, which was already half over the step of the phaeton, flew out, rolled a little way, and lay in the middle of the road, with the handle upwards.

She sat up quickly and called to Telemaco to stop. But the old man was a little deaf, and she had to call twice before he checked the quickly-trotting pair and brought them to a stand.

‘My parasol!’ she cried, as the coachman looked over his shoulder. ‘Give me the reins and get it,’ she added.