Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

Guido d'Este walked home from the Villa Madama in a very bad temper with everything. He was not of a dramatic disposition, nor easily inclined to sudden resolutions, and when placed in new and unexpected circumstances his instinct was rather to let them develop as they would than to direct them or oppose them actively. For the first time in his life he now felt that he must do one or the other.

To treat Lamberti as if nothing had happened was impossible, and it was equally out of the question to behave towards Cecilia as though she had not done or said anything to check the growth of intimacy and friendship on her side and of genuine love on his. He took the facts as he knew them and tried to state them justly, but he could make nothing of them that did not plainly accuse both Cecilia and Lamberti of deceiving him. Again and again, he recalled the words and behaviour of both, and he could reach no other conclusion. They had a joint secret which they had agreed to keep from him, and rather than reveal it his best friend was ready to break with him, and the woman he loved preferred never to see him again. He reflected that he was not the first man who had been checked by a girl and forsaken by a friend, but that did not make it any easier to bear.

It was quite clear that he could not submit to be so treated by them. Lamberti had asked him to speak to Cecilia before quarrelling definitely. He had done so, and he was more fully convinced than before that both were deceiving him. There was no way out of that conviction, there was not the smallest argument on the other side, and nothing that either could ever say could shake his belief. It was plainly his duty to tell them so, and it would be wisest to write to them, for he felt that he might lose his temper if he tried to say what he meant, instead of writing it.

He wrote to Lamberti first, because it was easier, though it was quite the hardest thing he had ever done. He began by proving to himself, and therefore to his friend, that he was writing after mature reflection and without the least hastiness, or temper, or unwillingness to be convinced, if Lamberti had anything to say in self-defence. He expressed no suspicion as to the probable nature of the secret that was withheld from him; he even wrote that he no longer wished to know what it was. His argument was that by refusing to reveal it, Lamberti had convicted himself of some unknown deed which he was ashamed to acknowledge, and Guido did not hesitate to add that such unjustifiable reticence might easily be construed in such a way as to cast a slur upon the character of an innocent young girl.

Having got so far, Guido immediately tore the whole letter to shreds and rose from his writing table, convinced that it was impossible to write what he meant without saying things which he did not mean. After all, he could simply avoid his old friend in future. The idea of quarrelling with him aggressively had never entered his mind, and it was therefore of no use to write anything at all. Lamberti must have guessed already that all friendship was at an end, and it would consequently be quite useless to tell him so.

He must write to Cecilia, however. He could not allow her to think, because he had apologised for rudely doubting her word, that he therefore believed what she had told him. He would write.

Here he was confronted by much greater difficulties than he had found in composing his unsuccessful letter to Lamberti. In the first place, he was in love with her, and it seemed to him that he should love her just as much, whatever she did. He wondered what it was that he felt, for at first he hardly thought it was jealousy, and it was assuredly not a mere passing fit of ill-tempered resentment.

It must be jealousy, after all. He fancied that she had known Lamberti before, and that she had been girlishly in love with him, and that when she had met him again she had been startled and annoyed. It was not so hard to imagine that this might be possible, though he could not see why they should both make such a secret of having known each other. But perhaps, by some accident, they had become intimate without the knowledge of the Countess, so that Cecilia was now very much afraid lest her mother should find it out.

Guido's reflections stopped there. At any other time he would have laughed at their absurdity, and now he resented it. The plain fact stared him in the face, the fact he had known all along and had forgotten—Lamberti could not possibly have met Cecilia since she had been a mere child, because Guido could account for all his friend's movements during the last five years. Five years ago, Cecilia had been thirteen.

He was glad that he had torn up his letter to Lamberti, and that he had not even begun the one to Cecilia, after sitting half an hour with his pen in his hand. Yes, he went over those five years, and then took from a drawer the last five of the little pocket diaries he always carried. There was a small space for each day of the year, and he never failed to note at least the name of the place in which he was, while travelling. He also recorded Lamberti's coming and going, the names of the ships to which he was ordered, and the dates of any notable facts in his life. It is tolerably easy to record the exact movements of a sailor in active service who is only at home on very short leave once in a year or two. Guido turned over the pages carefully and set down on a slip of paper what he found. In five years Lamberti's leave had not amounted to eight months in all, and Guido could account for every day of it, for they had spent all of it either in Rome or in travelling together. He laid the little diaries in the drawer again, and leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh of satisfaction.