A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

Apparently Schmidt had told her the exact truth about the passage, which was much longer than she had expected, and turned to the right very soon, and was straight beyond that for twenty yards or more. Maria guessed that it here followed the long wall of the great ball-room, which had no entrances opposite the windows. She reached the door of the chapel, and the electric light showed her a strong new bolt with a brass knob, besides the spring latch.

‘It is quite private, you see,’ said Schmidt. ‘The door can be fastened from this side.’

‘I see. It is very satisfactory. You have thought of everything.’

He opened the door of the small dim chapel, but she would not go in. It had memories for her which she was afraid to stir. She remembered how she had once gone there alone between midnight and morning with a great horror upon her; and how she had knelt down, setting her candlestick on the pavement beside her; and the dawn had found her there still. She knew also that in another week or ten days she would have to kneel there at mass on a Sunday; and Montalto would be kneeling on one side of her, and Leone with his bright blue eyes would be on the other.

‘Thank you,’ she said to the steward. ‘I will not go into the chapel now.’

‘Nothing has been changed there,’ he answered. ‘It has merely been thoroughly cleaned.’

Maria remembered the two hideous barocco angels in impossible gilt draperies that supported a dreadful gilt canopy above the tabernacle; and the absurd decorations of the miniature dome; and the detestable assemblage of many-coloured marbles; and all the details that recalled the atrocious taste introduced under the Spanish influence in the south of Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She had seen nothing of all that when she had come there alone, long after midnight, years ago, with only her one flickering candle to light her through the great dark rooms and to show her where the altar was.

‘I thought the Count would not like to have electric light in the chapel,’ said Schmidt, as he fastened the door carefully. ‘The key for the lights in the passage is here on the wall, your Excellency, just on a level with the lock as you come in.’

‘It is really very well arranged,’ Maria answered, and as the passage was not wide enough for two persons to pass conveniently, she turned and led the way back.